How do bacteria stay alive and relevant? They make sure they’re well-cultured!
This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science.
Everyone’s got problems right? Even bacteria have their OWN viruses, called bacteriophages. Yay! But dormant bacteria, which reproduce less, are less vulnerable to viruses. Can we figure out how to target these dormant bacteria with viruses?
Enter Enea Maffei in the HalmsLab at E-T-H Zürich in Switzerland.
Researchers infected two species of bacteria with eighteen bacteriophages. Bacteria were either growing or dormant during infection.
One bacteriophage, called Paride, directly killed dormant bacteria! Scientists next wanted to see if Paride can be used to kill antibiotic-resistant bacteria. They added meropenem, an antibiotic, to ninety-one Paride-infected bacteria samples. They compared these with cells treated with only meropenem.
Results?
Amazingly, the amount of dormant bacteria was THREE times less after five days! This mixture was tested in mice, showing almost a third less bacteria!
So kick rocks, you nasty bacteria! I have all the culture I need.
Reference: Maffei, E., Woischnig, A., Burkolter, M., Heyer, Y., Humolli, D., Thürkauf, N., Bock, T., Schmidt, A., Manfredi, P., Egli, A., Khanna, N., Jenal, U., & Harms, A. (2024). Phage Paride can kill dormant, antibiotic-tolerant cells of Pseudomonas aeruginosa by direct lytic replication. Nature Communications, 15(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-44157-3