The Role Of Bacterial Efflux Cell Resistance And Therapeutics

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or more commonly, MRSA, is an emerging infectious disease affecting many people worldwide. MRSA, in particular, is a very interesting disease because although many people can be carriers of it, it generally only affects those with a depressed immune system; this is why it is so prevalent in places like nursing homes and hospitals. It can be spread though surgeries, artificial joints, tubing, and skin-to-skin contact. Although there is not one specific treatment of this disease, there are ways to test what antibiotics work best and sometimes antibiotics aren’t even necessary.

Antibiotics are inarguably one of the greatest advances in medical science of the past century. Although the first natural antibiotic Penicillin was not discovered until 1928 by Scottish biologist Alexander Flemming, evidence exists that certain plant and mold growths were used to treat infections in ancient Egypt, ancient India, and classical Greece (Forrest, 1982). In our modern world with the advent of synthetic chemistry synthetic antibiotics like Erithromycin and its derivative Azithromycin have been developed. Antibiotics have many uses including the treatment of bacterial and protozoan infection, in surgical operations and prophylactically to prevent the development of an infection. Through these applications, antibiotics have saved countless lives across the world and radically altered the field of medicine. Though a wonderful and potentially lifesaving tool, antibiotic use is not without its disadvantages. Mankind has perhaps been too lax in regulation and too liberal in application of antibiotics and growing antibiotic resistance is the price we must now pay. A recent study showed that perhaps 70% of bacterial infections acquired during hospital visits in the United States are resistant to at least one class of antibiotic (Leeb, 2004). Bacteria are not helpless and their genetic capabilities have allowed them to take advantage of society’s overuse of antibiotics, allowing them to develop

Antibiotics can be extremely effective when used properly to fight infection. However, bacteria has the ability to grow a resistance to antibiotics, in some cases becoming extremely hard to treat. Antibiotics are prescribed by physicians based on what is thought to be the causative organism. Once contracted with MRSA, a patient is put on strict measures to ensure our safety from retrieving this infectious disease. The patient is kept in a private room, restricted from coming out, and when you enter their room you are encouraged to wear a gown and gloves to protect yourself from this disease. Antibiotics are given based off of an educated guess until test results may arrive, and even overused and taken improperly, proving to assist

Widespread use of antibiotics has been very controversial in the media as well in the general population. Due to these controversies, it is very misunderstood to how antibiotics work leading to many patients in the hospital setting wanting to take them when it is not necessary or refusing to take when it is necessary for their survival. Some of this controversy is due to antibiotic resistance, which has spread an alarming rate in the 21st century (Walsh, 2000). Antibiotic resistance is the result of very strong bacteria or microbes that are resistant to the antibiotic prescribed and those microbes accumulate overtime by their survival, reproduction and transfer, leading to increased levels of antibiotic resistance.

Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a pathogen that causes many complicated health infections in our body. It’s a type of s. aureus bacteria that can produced by process of resistance to many antibiotics such as dicloxacillin, oxacillin, and methicillin. Why is MRSA so dangerous? Its natural ability is to continue transforming in ways to prevent from antibiotic from being completely successful in the batter against MRSA. The US had spent billions of dollar every year into research in order to prevent it from further spreading. In order to do so, we must step up to advance our technology and knowledge to be able to defeat the bacterial warfare. This research will discuss the prevalence and different factors of the disease, it

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is bacteria that have evolved in becoming resistant to several antibiotics. The resistance has led the bacteria to become more dangerous as different ways of treating the infections have become less. The bacteria that survive antibiotics and reproduce are a result of natural selection (British Broadcasting Corporation, 2017). All the weak bacteria are killed, whereas, all the strong “superbugs” are left. MRSA is confined in hospitals across the world, and community associated MRSA (CA-MRSA) is now widening into the general public (Goetghebeur, Landry, Han, & Vicente, 2007). This serious health issue is the transmission of bacteria resistant organisms that have a potential for morbidity

One of the more important proteins residing in E. coli is DHFR. This is an enzyme that catalyzes the reduction of dihy­drofolate to tetrahydrofolate in cells5. Since nucleic and amino acid synthesis is affected by the amount of tetrahydrofolate present, DHFR has a direct impact on all actively dividing and growing cells5. This plays a vital role in antibiotics, as having the ability to target the enzyme which controls the production of these new cells would allow for the control of the bacteria. By analyzing DHFR, researchers identified that parallel populations of DHFR evolved and acquired similar mutations in a similar order, implying some sort of evolutionary pathway to antibiotic resistance1. Additionally, many of the mutations were observed near the promotor, and it was calculated that the mutations were most likely not due to chance. This leads to a better understanding of the possible pathways of mutation, which allows scientists to circumvent antibiotic resistance and develop novel

aureus has a remarkable ability to develop antibiotic resistance, leading to four distinct resistance waves that have occurred in the past sixty years. The advent of PRSA, then MRSA resistance has resulted in a steady decline in the efficacy of these valuable antibiotics. The MRSA first emerged as a nosocomial pathogen (HA-MRSA; in the 1960s), then further surfaced as a community based infection (CA-MRSA; in the 1990s) and has subsequently increased the staphylococcal disease burden. It is a global public health problem and represents the most commonly identified antibiotic-resistant pathogen.

Studies have shown that the rate at which MRSA colonizes and infects patients is significantly correlated with the amount and nature of the antibiotics prescribed in clinics (van Belkum, 2001).

Resistance methods may also include inactivation of the antibiotic by an enzyme (acetyltransferase or phosphotransferase). There is also the possibility of mutations in the bacterial rRNA which interferes with the reception of the drug to the bacterial cell. Another mechanism of resistance includes an active efflux pump, which transfers chemicals such as antibiotics out of (bacterial) cells.It has been observed that “cells exhibited upregulation and downregulation of genes involved in protein biosynthesis, nutrient transport, gene regulation, stress and metabolism” in the presence of the

Take for example MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), a S. aureus strain that was discovered in 1961 to be resistant to the antibiotic methicillin. Webmd indicates that MRSA has now grown its resistance from methicillin to “amoxicillin, penicillin, oxacillin and many other common antibiotics” (MRSA). This increase in resistance of a methicillin-resistant strain of S. aureus can be attributed to the increasing use and overuse of antibiotics, not only in the doctor’s office but also in agriculture. MRSA is only one of many antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria. New resistant strains are evolving rapidly. According to Dr. Ed Warren, “there are high levels of antibiotic resistance in bacteria causing common infections (e.g. urinary tract infections, pneumonia, bloodstream infections) in all regions of the world” (21).

There seems to be an ongoing battle between the evolution of bacteria and modern medicine. This has become a serious problem in hospitals as bacterial resistant infections continue to be on the rise despite the practice of standard precautions that treat all patients as if they have an infectious disease. One of the leading public health threats today is meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus or MRSA. With all of the advancements in medicine, it is hard to believe that we do not have the ability to manufacture new antibiotics that would target these resistive organisms. The problem is not only confined to the United States but affects people globally. According to Bartlett, Gilbert, & Spellberg (2013) this is being considered a

Many bacterial infections are treated with anti-bacterial agents such as antibiotics. However, due to the uncontrolled use of antibiotics, particularly the prescribing of antibiotics to treat common viral colds and flu, microbial resistance to antibiotic has dramatically increased. (The Health Gazette, n.d.). Scientist have warned that E.coli which has previously been sensitive to antibiotics, is becoming resistant to more antibiotics and in future could become as resistant to antibiotics like that of Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). In addition, there is a

Recently, many antimicrobial resistant organisms have emerged. These microbes have become less treatable with current medications and make it difficult to prevent or treat infections in patients. Higher doses of medicine are used, but may lead to drastic side effects. Staphylococcus aureus has recently developed resistances to multiple drugs, including penicillin, methicillin, tetracyclin, and even vancomycin. The World Health Organization reported in April 2014 that drug resistant microorganisms are “…no longer a prediction for the future, it is happening right now…” New drugs are required to treat patients with these drug resistant infections.

In the second article Mcgarvey, Queitsch, and Fields are attempting to study and identify which genes and or proteins are accountable for generating antibiotic resistance in bacteria. The authors hypothesized that a screening of soil metagenomic DNA library in an Escherichia coli host for genes could project resistance to the following antibiotics: gentamicin, kanamycin, rifampin, trimethoprim, chloramphenicol, or tetracycline. The screen concluded that 41 genes were encoding novel protein variants of about eight families.