{"id":2374002,"date":"2020-05-26T15:10:54","date_gmt":"2020-05-26T19:10:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.futurity.org\/?p=2374002"},"modified":"2020-05-26T15:10:54","modified_gmt":"2020-05-26T19:10:54","slug":"blue-light-photolysis-mrsa-superbugs-2374002-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.futurity.org\/blue-light-photolysis-mrsa-superbugs-2374002-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue light could be the ‘next frontier’ in superbug fight"},"content":{"rendered":"
A new light-based weapon could aid the fight against antibiotic-resistant pathogens like MRSA, researchers report.<\/p>\n
Scientists are locked in a high-stakes race against bacterial evolution, racing against adversaries that can spawn a new generation in less time than it takes to wash a load of laundry.<\/p>\n
New strains of antibiotic-resistant pathogens<\/a> emerge faster than we can develop drugs to fight them, and experts warn that there may come a day when modern medicine as we know it is endangered by superbugs we can’t kill.<\/p>\n The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 2.8 million antibiotic-resistant infections occur in the United States each year, resulting in 35,000 deaths.<\/p>\n Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or <\/em>MRSA<\/a>, causes more than half of these fatalities. The strain of bacteria can cause severe skin and soft tissue infections, sepsis, and pneumonia. Over the years, MRSA has developed multi-drug resistance to many conventional antibiotics, making it difficult to treat and cure.<\/p>\n Now, researchers have found that using photolysis can temporarily weaken MRSA’s defenses enough to make it vulnerable again to several classes of antibiotics. In other words, you don’t need to outrun MRSA to beat it. You just need to crack its armor.<\/p>\n “Our therapy is novel because instead of using a drug-based approach, it takes physical aim at the structure of the cell itself,” says Ji-Xin Cheng, professor of biomedical engineering and electrical and computer engineering at Boston University and senior author of the study in Advanced 糖心视频<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n The breakthrough got its beginnings back in 2017, when Cheng’s lab began exploring new optical microscope techniques to study S. aureus<\/em>. They hit a snag. It turned out a molecule called staphyloxanthin (STX), the signature golden pigment found in S. aureus<\/em>, was prone to bleaching by blue light, making it too unstable for microscopy.<\/p>\n But another revelation soon captured their attention: this photobleaching had destroyed the majority of a MRSA colony. It wasn’t long, Cheng recalls, before his team turned to a much more consequential question: “If we bleach [MRSA’s golden pigment], can we kill the bacteria?”<\/p>\n The researchers discovered that blue light photons catastrophically damaged the bacteria’s membrane, wiping out 90% of MRSA cells. It was a promising finding, but not a home run.<\/p>\n To finish off that last 10%, the scientists tried an innovative one-two punch: using blue light photolysis to break apart MRSA’s cell membrane, followed by a dose of hydrogen peroxide. The combination therapy eradicated 99.9% of the MRSA colony.<\/p>\n99.9% eradication<\/h3>\n