MOSCOW, 20 Apr. Scientists from Tomsk Polytechnic University together with colleagues from the Russian Academy of Sciences were able to reduce the resistance of microbes to antibiotics with the help of silver. According to the authors of the development, a drug based on silver nanoparticles can increase the effectiveness of suppressing infections with drugs, to which microbes have already developed “protection”. The results are published in the journal Nanomaterials.
The growth of bacterial resistance to antibiotics is a global public health and veterinary problem. Increasing microbial resistance is causing drugs that take more than a decade to develop to be suitable for treatment for much less time, Tomsk scientists said.
Chemists of Tomsk Polytechnic University together with microbiologists of the Siberian Federal Scientific Center for Agrobiotechnologies of the Russian Academy of Sciences have found a new approach to the use of the most «deserved» antimicrobial agent — silver. silver in the fight against Staphylococcus aureus and streptococcus aureus. The latest work of the team is devoted to the effect of nanoparticles on one of the most common and dangerous pathogens in animals and humans — Escherichia coli.
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“Our idea is to use a solution of silver nanoparticles as an independent drug, and not an additive to antibiotics. Tests allow us to conclude that our drug dramatically increases the sensitivity of pathogens to antibiotics. In other words, our research opens a new page in microbiology, allowing many old drugs to be brought back to the market and to increase their effectiveness,” explained Aleksey Pestryakov, professor at the Tomsk Polytechnic Research School of Chemical and Biomedical Technologies.
The study was conducted on breeding cows with serous mastitis, the causative agent of which is Escherichia coli. One group was treated with a veterinary antibacterial drug of combined action, the second group was treated with a drug from scientists from Tomsk Polytechnic University. -ratio=»0.5625″ data-crop-width=»600″ data-crop-height=»338″ data-source-sid=»not_rian_photo» class=»» />
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«A comparative analysis showed that treatment with drugs containing antibiotics led to a decrease in the sensitivity of E. coli to both it and other antibacterial drugs by more than 20%. After treating animals with silver nanoparticles, the sensitivity of bacteria to antibiotics increased by almost 20%,» Pestryakov told.
The study used silver nanoparticles synthesized by specialists from the Tomsk Polytechnic University together with colleagues from the Research and Development Center Vector-Vita (Novosibirsk) and the National University of Mexico. According to scientists, they are completely non-toxic to the body, they can be stored as a solution for a long time without losing their beneficial properties.
«There are several reasons for this effect: nanoparticles inhibit the growth of biofilms that protect bacterial communities from the outside , they reduce the ability of microbes to attach to the cells of the body, they also reduce the proportion of bacterial cells that can deactivate antibiotics,» said Alexey Pestryakov.
The study is being carried out under the Russian Science Foundation grant No. In the future, the team of scientists intends to continue studying the mechanisms of action of silver nanoparticles on bacterial colonies and develop new forms of drugs based on them.
Tomsk Polytechnic University is a member of the Priority-2030 state support program for Russian universities.