(Press-News.org) For the first time, Australian scientists have confirmed a link between the role of regular fish oil to break down the ability of 'superbugs' to become resistant to antibiotics.
The discovery, led by Flinders University and just published in international journal mBio, found that the antimicrobial powers of fish oil fatty acids could prove a simple and safe dietary supplement for people to take with antibiotics to make their fight against infection more effective.
"Importantly, our studies indicate that a major antibiotic resistance mechanism in cells can be negatively impacted by the uptake of omega-3 dietary lipids," says microbiologist Dr Bart Eijkelkamp, who leads the Bacterial Host Adaptation Research Lab at Flinders University.
"In the experiments, and complementary supercomputer modelling, we found that these fatty acids in fish oil renders the bacteria more susceptible to various common antibiotics."
"This chink in the armour of harmful bacteria is an important step forward in combatting the rise of superbugs that are developing multidrug resistance to antibiotics," says co-author Associate Professor Megan O'Mara, from the Australian National University.
The research is vital in the field of infectious diseases caused by bacteria such as Acinetobacter baumannii, a leading hospital-acquired pathogen with unprecedented levels of antibiotic resistance around the world.
"With the rise of superbugs, we have now been able to show that greedy bacterium cannot distinguish between 'good and bad' host fatty acids and will consume all of these during an infection," says another co-author Dr Felise Adams, from Flinders University.
"Our research showed that fish oil fatty acids become part of the bacteria membrane and thus make the invading bacteria membrane more permeable and susceptible to the antibiotics being used to attack it."
"We know Acinetobacter baumannii is one of the world's most notorious multidrug resistant pathogens, yet how it responds to host-mediated stress is poorly understood."
"These studies provide new insights into the potential benefits of omega-3 supplements for bacterial infection, in particular during antibiotic treatment," says Professor Anton Peleg, director of the Department of Infectious Diseases at The Alfred Hospital, Melbourne.
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The two research publications feature collaborators from ANU, Macquarie University, University of Adelaide, Monash University, University of Newcastle and the SA Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI), with funding from NHMRC Project Grants 1140554 to MLO and 1159752 and supporting collaborations.
The first article, To make or take: bacterial lipid homeostasis during infection (2021) by Felise G Adams, Claudia Trappetti, Jack K Waters, Maoge Zang, Erin B Brazel, James C Paton, Marten F Snel and Bart A Eijkelkamp, has been published in mBio DOI: 10.1128/mBio.00928-21
A detailed analysis, The membrane composition defines the spatial organisation and function of a major Acinetobacter baumannii drug efflux system (2021) by Maoge Zang, Hugo MacDermott-Opeskin, Felise G Adams, Varsha Naidu, Jack K Waters, Ashley B Carey, Alex Ashenden, Kimberley T McLean, Erin B Brazel , Jhih Hang Jiang, Alessandra Panizza, Claudia Trappetti, James C Paton, Anton Y Peleg, Ingo Köper, Ian T Paulsen, Karl A Hassan, Megan L O'Mara and Bart A Eijkelkamp, also has been published in mBio DOI: 10.1128/mBio.01070-21
As many older adults get back to normal life across the United States thanks to high rates of vaccination and lower COVID-19 activity, a new poll suggests many should watch their alcohol intake.
In all, 23% of adults over 50 who drink alcohol reported that they routinely had three or more drinks in one sitting, according to END ...
DALLAS, June 9, 2021 -- Many adults with a history of cardiovascular disease (CVD) continue to smoke cigarettes and/or use other tobacco products, despite knowing it increases their risk of having another cardiovascular event, according to new research published today in the Journal of the American Heart Association, an open access journal of the American Heart Association.
To understand how many adults with CVD continue to use tobacco products, investigators reviewed survey responses from the large, national Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health Study (PATH) to compare tobacco use rates over time. The participants of the current study included 2,615 adults (ages 18 or older) with a self-reported history of heart attack, heart failure, stroke or other heart disease, ...
The field of ultrafast nonlinear photonics has now become the focus of numerous studies, as it enables a host of applications in advanced on-chip spectroscopy and information processing. The latter in particular requires a strongly intensity-dependent optical refractive index that can modulate optical pulses faster than even picosecond timescales and on sub-millimeter scales suitable for integrated photonics.
Despite the tremendous progress made in this field, there is currently no platform providing such features for the ultraviolet (UV) spectral range, which is where broadband spectra generated by nonlinear modulation can be used for new on-chip ultrafast chemical and biochemical spectroscopy devices.
Now, an ...
An international group of collaborators, including scientists from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and The University of New Mexico, have discovered a new, temperate sub-Neptune sized exoplanet with a 24-day orbital period orbiting a nearby M dwarf star. The recent discovery offers exciting research opportunities thanks to the planet's substantial atmosphere, small star, and how fast the system is moving away from the Earth.
The research, titled TOI-1231 b: A Temperate, Neptune-Sized Planet Transiting the Nearby M3 Dwarf NLTT 24399, will be published in a future issue of The Astronomical Journal. The exoplanet, TOI-1231 b, was detected ...
The presence and accumulation of the antioxidant pigment anthocyanin dictates fruit hue in plums, and the synthesis of this compound is known to be regulated by the MYB10 genes. Now, researchers from the Centre for Research in Agricultural Genomics (CRAG) and the Institute of Agrifood Research and Technology (IRTA) have found the gene that determines Japanese plum skin colour. In a END ...
New research by scientists at Oxford Brookes University has identified specific genes which could provide vital information about the biology of developmental coordination disorder (DCD), also known as dyspraxia. Dyspraxia is a common motor coordination condition which is estimated to affect at least one child in every classroom.
DCD can impact a child's handwriting and coordination skills such as tying a shoelace or catching a ball. The condition can limit school achievement, impact cognitive development, constrain career opportunities and increase children's risk of developing mental health issues.
Despite the condition affecting five per cent of children, as common as dyslexia or autism, very little is known about why some children struggle ...
Therapy based on the Nintendo® Wii Balance Board can help improve balance in children with cerebral palsy, according to an analysis published in END ...
Advanced age is often considered a contraindication for heart transplantation, but a new study published in the END ...
It all started, when Patrice Cani, FNRS researcher at University of Louvain (UCLouvain), and his team repeatedly observed that a bacterium (called Subdoligranulum) is almost absent in obese and diabetic people, while it is systematically present in healthy people. So, they decided to take a closer look at this "family" of bacteria.
There is as yet only one cultivated strain of this family available in the world (the only known member of a large family) and, no luck, it is not the strain that was observed to be decreased in sick people. This is not unusual: nearly 70% of bacteria in the intestine have not yet been identified (this is called the dark matter of the ...
It's incumbent upon counselors to initiate or respond to clients' concerns about racial, ethnic, and cultural issues, but guidelines lack specific instructions. An article published in the Journal of Counseling & Development provides counselors with strategies for broaching and discussing topics of race, ethnicity, and culture with clients.
The article describes a model for broaching these issues and explains a series of steps--joining, assessment, preparation, and delivery--involved in using it.
"This and other articles serve as the foundation for the next phase in our research on counselor implementation of broaching and its impact on client mental health outcomes," the authors wrote.
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