In a letter released today by Nature, scientists from Harvard University demonstrate what they describe as "charitable" behavior among cultures of bacteria with antibiotic resistance. The development of antibiotic resistance in pathogenic microorganisms is a growing medical problem. Researchers are scrambling to understand how resistance develops and is passed between organisms, in order to fight the proliferation of "Superbugs": Bacteria with multi-drug resistance. The authors of the Nature paper (Lee et al., 2010) have found that individual microorganisms, within a culture of drug-resistant E. coli, vary widely in terms of differences in their ability to survive. The biochemical indole, produced by microorganisms, triggers drug efflux pumps and oxidative stress responses, helping them resist the effects of antibiotics. The authors found that, within the culture, weaker strains survive an onslought of pharmaceuticals because the stronger isolates sacrifice their own robustness to produce indole for the entire culture. After sequencing the entire genome, the researchers concluded that indole production was unrelated to mutations for drug resistance, but that the small number of resistant organisms can provide protection to others in the population, in the presence of antibiotics.
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Comments
Have all become too sterile? We wash our hands with anti-bacterial soaps and hand sanitizers constantly and this limits our immune system to ward off viruses or super-bugs.
Urine therapy can be a safe alternative but also some have stated that even using yogurt with probiotics can help you regulate the good bacteria inside your body. This may not be the be all end all but it should still help us maintain a healthy immune system.