(Press-News.org) ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Urinary tract infections are a painful, recurring problem for millions of women. They are also getting more dangerous as bacteria develop resistance to the most common treatments.
Scientists from the University of Michigan have moved one step closer to a vaccine that could prevent a majority of urinary tract infections, which are caused by E. coli bacteria. Using a genetic technique rarely used to look at infections in human hosts, the researchers studied how the E. coli bacteria operate and discovered key differences between how the bacteria's genes behave in women and how they behave in mice used in experiments.
Their findings, published online Nov. 11 in PLoS Pathogens, could lead to developments that would save billions in health care costs and millions of doctors' visits and hospitalizations from urinary tract infections each year.
"If we want to prevent infections in humans, we need to look at what's going on with the bacteria while it's in humans," says Harry L.T. Mobley, Ph.D., the study's senior investigator and the Frederick G. Novy Professor and chair of the U-M Department of Microbiology and Immunology. "We're not looking to make the world safer for mice."
Mobley's team found that specific surface structures of the E. coli found in mouse infections, which scientists consider a key to how the bugs thrive, were not prevalent in the human samples.
"That tells us it's more complicated than we thought and that there are some important differences we need to study in human infections," says research fellow Erin C. Hagan, one of the study's two first authors.
Last year, Mobley's team published a study that showed a vaccine they had developed prevented infection and produced key types of immunity in mice.
Even though researchers found differences in gene expression in the mouse and human samples, key targets of the vaccine related to iron acquisition were found in both samples, raising hopes that the vaccine would work in humans. Still, he cautions, developing and testing a vaccine for humans is several years away.
The latest research also provided an opportunity for basic science researchers and clinicians at U-M to work together.
In this case, microbiologists turned to Gary J. Faerber, M.D., a professor of urology at the University of Michigan Medical School and co-director of the Kidney Stone/Lithotriptor Program and the Michigan Center for Minimally Invasive Urology, whose clinic provided the needed samples, which must be collected quickly and carefully to preserve the bacteria.
Urinary tract infections are an increasing concern for Faerber, who says he's seen the number of infections that are resistant to common antibiotic treatments rapidly increase in recent years.
"That resistance is just going to keep going up," Faerber says. He described a recent, older patient whose infection would only respond to a single antibiotic costing $500 per dose and which has to be administered intravenously.
Antibiotic resistance is becoming an issue with not only limiting antibiotic choices but also cost of treatment with newer generation antibiotics, Faerber says.
Urinary Tract Infections in context:
UTIs account for more than 8 million doctor's visits each year.
UTIs cost an estimated $3.5 billion to treat each year and generate more than 3 million prescriptions.
E. coli is responsible for roughly 80 percent of UTIs.
Forty percent of women will experience UTI symptoms in their lifetime; a quarter of them will have a second episode within 6 to 12 months.
Men can also get urinary tract infections, though they are less common; urinary stones or enlarged prostates make infection more likely.
E. coli resistance to a class of antibiotics known as fluoroquinolones is up to 15 percent in some places. That class includes, ciprofloxacin, which is more commonly known as "cipro" and is considered a second-line treatment.
Seven of the 12 E. coli samples collected during the U-M study showed resistance to an antibiotic commonly used to treat UTIs.
INFORMATION:
Additional Authors:Amanda L. Lloyd, U-M research fellow and co-first author; David A. Rasko, University of Maryland School of Medicine.
Disclosure:U-M has applied for patent protection for this technology. The University is presently looking for licensing partners to help bring the technology to market.
Funding:National Institutes of Health
Citation: PLoS Pathogens, Nov. 11, 2010.
Resources:
UTI information guide, kidney.niddk.nih.gov/kudiseases/pubs/uti_ez
U-M Department of Urology, www.med.umich.edu/urology
END
History's first recognized influenza pandemic originated in Asia and rapidly spread to other continents 500 years ago, in the summer of 1510. A new commentary by researchers at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, explores the 1510 pandemic and what we have learned since then about preventing, controlling and treating influenza.
Prior to that time, regional and local epidemics of respiratory infectious diseases and pneumonia had occurred, but no outbreaks had yet been recorded on a worldwide scale. The 1510 ...
A collaboration between a physician-researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and a mathematician from Harvard University has led to development of a mathematical model reflecting how red blood cells change in size and hemoglobin content during their four-month lifespan. In their report published online in PNAS Early Edition, John Higgins, MD, MGH Center for Systems Biology and Department of Pathology, and L. Mahadevan, PhD, Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), also describe how their model may be used to provide valuable clinical information.
"This ...
Geneva, Switzerland, 12 November 2010 – Allosteric modulation company Addex Pharmaceuticals (SIX:ADXN) announced today that data on a total of nine therapeutic programs will be presented during Society for Neuroscience 2010 (November 13-17, San Diego, USA), highlighting the strength of its allosteric modulation technology platform. The data being presented cover multiple receptor types and therapeutic areas, including Parkinson's disease, schizophrenia, anxiety, Alzheimer's disease and depression.
"The data generated by Addex and our partners, Ortho-McNeil-Janssen and ...
COLLEGE STATION -- A virus that normally deforms or kills plants like tomatoes, peppers and eggplants isn't all bad: A gene within the virus has been found useful for allowing foreign genes to be introduced into a plant without harmful effects, according to Texas AgriLife Research scientists.
The technology ultimately could lead the way toward a "cheap, green alternative" for pharmaceutical development, said Dr. Herman Scholthof, AgriLife Research virologist.
Scholthof and colleague Drs. Yi-Cheng Hsieh and Veria Alvarado collaborated with scientists at the John Innes ...
Chemical reactions are happening all over the place all the time--on the sun, on the Earth and in our bodies. In many cases, enzymes help make these reactions occur. One family of enzymes, called cytochrome P450s (P450), is important because they help us eliminate toxins.
We know P450s are important to life of all kinds because they have been found in animals, plants, fungi and bacteria, but they are of special interest to humans because they are responsible for metabolism of about 75 percent of known pharmaceuticals.
"The reactions that P450s perform to detoxify a ...
PHILADELPHIA - The potential for harmful side effects associated with anti-psychotic medications for treating schizophrenia is a frustration for mental-health professionals who must balance this with the positive benefits of drugs. For example, the issue of the antipsychotic drug ziprasidone lengthening the QTc interval, a possible indicator of life-threatening heart arrhythmias, has demanded much attention among clinicians since the drug was introduced in 2001.
Ziprasidone (marketed as Geodon and Zeldox by Pfizer Inc.) was the fifth second-generation anti-psychotic ...
The impact of 30 years of HIV on an area once described as the epicentre of the African AIDS epidemic will be discussed at a lecture hosted by the University of East Anglia (UEA) in London this month.
Progressive declines in agricultural production, with dire consequences for rural livelihoods, were originally predicted as a result of the long-term effects of HIV and AIDS in central and south western Uganda. However, recent research has shown that those forecasts have not come true.
The lecture "30 years into the HIV epidemic in South West Uganda and the rural economy ...
Amsterdam, The Netherlands and San Antonio, TX, USA, November 12, 2010 – There is growing global concern regarding the potential neurotoxicity of anesthetics. Biophysical and animal model studies have identified molecular changes simulating Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology after exposure to inhaled anesthetics. This research has alerted anesthesiologists, neuropsychologists, surgeons and other clinicians to initiate in-depth clinical research on the role of anesthetics in post operative cognitive decline.
AD is a devastating disease commonly found in elderly persons ...
Catastrophic drought is on the near-term horizon for the capital city of Bolivia, according to new research into the historical ecology of the Andes.
If temperatures rise more than 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius (3 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit) above those of modern times, parts of Peru and Bolivia will become a desert-like setting.
The change would be disastrous for the water supply and agricultural capacity of the two million inhabitants of La Paz, Bolivia's capital city, scientists say.
The results, derived from research funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and ...
James "Jimmy" Armstrong hadn't missed a "Mac" in 28 years. At 44, he's one of the youngest "goats" in the Chicago Yacht Club. Sailors receive the designation of "goat" once they've completed 20 or more "Macs", the 333-mile boat race from Chicago to Mackinac, Mich. Armstrong has sailed the race every year since he was 16. But, he wasn't among the sailors this past July. Instead, he was in intensive care awaiting heart transplant following a harrowing experience spurred by severe case of myocarditis—a little-known condition causing inflammation of the heart muscle.
"I ...
