New High-Speed Test Shows How Antibiotics Combine to Kill Bacteria
upstart writes in with an IRC submission:
New high-speed test shows how antibiotics combine to kill bacteria:
Combinations of antimicrobial agents are invariably prescribed for certain infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis, HIV and malaria. Bacterial infections that are not readily treatable, such as those affecting cardiac valves and prostheses, and lung infections in cystic fibrosis, are also usually subjected to a combination of antibiotics. The effect sought, "synergism", means that the joint action of the combined agents is more effective than could in fact have been expected, based on the efficacy of the separate agents. In contrast, the opposite phenomenon-that is, two antibiotics counteracting each other's effects ("antagonism")-is undesirable. However, knowing what the combined effect will be is not always easy.
With the newly developed method known as CombiANT (combinations of antibiotics), interactions between various antibiotics can be tested on agar plates and results obtained in 24 hours. The lead author of the study, Nikos Fatsis-Kavalopoulos, developed the method at Uppsala University. It is based on creating a "concentration gradient" of antibiotics that have been cast into an agar plate, using a 3-D-printed plastic disc.
On the agar plate, bacteria that have been isolated from an individual patient are then cultured to see how they react to different combinations of antibiotics.
Journal Reference:
Nikos Fatsis-Kavalopoulos, Roderich Roemhild, Po-Cheng Tang, et al. CombiANT: Antibiotic interaction testing made easy, PLOS Biology (DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3000856)
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