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Strength in numbers: The microbiome versus 'superbugs'

by Gus Iversen, Editor in Chief | July 29, 2015
Infection Control Population Health Risk Management
The human gut is home to some 100 trillion microorganisms. When a bacterial infection invades our bodies, that microbiome may be the first to know.

New research from the University of Michigan Medical School looked at the microbiome of much smaller mammals, mice, to shed some light on how bacteria braces itself for an intruder. By giving seven groups of mice different antibiotics and then exposing them to Clostridium difficile spores, they determined which bacteria survived the antibiotics and what factors enabled C-diff to succeed.

Based solely on knowing what bacteria the mice had in their gut, the researchers were able to predict with 90 percent accuracy the success of the bacterial invasion.

"We know that individual humans all have different collections of gut bacteria, that your internal 'village' is different from mine. But research has mostly focused on studying one collection at a time," said Dr. Patrick D. Schloss, associate professor of microbiology and immunology at U.M., and lead researcher, in a statement.

"By looking at many types of microbiomes at once, we were able to tease out a subset of bacterial communities that appear to resist C-diff colonization, and predict to what extent they could prevent an infection."

Knowing what distinguishes an effective defense from a failed defense could be vital to stopping the spread of antibiotic resistant "superbugs," such as Clostridium difficile, which kills more than 14,000 Americans every year.

They found that while no individual bacterium was responsible for the outcome of the "battle", the populations of different families of bacteria did play a role. Porphyromonadaceae, Lachnospiraceae, Lactobacillus, Alistipes, and Turicibacter families were all associated with resistance, while a larger population of Escherichia bacteria was associated with susceptibility.

Understanding the kind of bacterial populations that make a body susceptible to infection could be a major step in addressing the problem. "It's the community that matters, and antibiotics screw it up," said Schloss.

While antibiotics are intended to kill harmful bacteria, they can have a disruptive effect on the population of the normal bacteria too. In the case of antibiotic resistant bacteria, that disruption may pave the way for an infection.

The researchers hope their work may lead to a diagnostic tool to predict which patients will need the most protection against C-diff infections when they go to the hospital or are exposed to the antibiotic resistant bacteria.

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