Uncooperative Staphylococcus Aureus Helps Treating Infections

A new research carried out by scientists at the University of Nottingham, found out that in Staphylococcus aureus infections, bacteria that do not communicate with their infection-causing partners stop producing toxins.

All bacteria work together and have a certain way of communicating – a system called Quorum Sensing (QS), which allows them to coordinate the toxin release during an infection.

Researchers noticed that in the case of S. aureus infection, there were some bacterial cells that were a bit more selfish and did not communicate with others, investing their energy in reproducing rather than releasing toxins.

The theory was tested by introducing Staphylococcus aureus into waxworms, that later on developed infections.

QS-deficient bacteria stopped releasing toxins and focused on their reproduction, benefiting from the nutrient-rich infection that other bacteria maintained.

This way, QS-deficient bacteria rapidly outnumbered the toxin-producing bacteria, thus reducing the gravity of the infection.

Mr Eric Pollitt, who will present the study at the Society for General Microbiology's autumn meeting today, said that “this opens up the interesting possibility of using these uncooperative bacteria to treat infection.”

“We found that the QS-deficient bacteria could not only outgrow normal bacteria in the same population, but that they could also invade other cooperating populations to reduce the severity of infection,” he added.

“This means that we could potentially isolate QS-deficient bacteria and use them to treat clinical S. aureus infections.”

The staphylococcus aureus infection is very serious and it also has strains that are resistant to antibiotics, like the Meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).

“Importantly, as any treatment involving QS-deficient bacteria would not be based on antibiotics, it could complement current treatments for S. aureus infections,” said Mr Pollitt, according to e! Science News.

This discovery might just be the new approach to treating antibiotic-resistant infections, even though it seems a bit paradoxical.

“It's an interesting concept of “fighting like with like”, [and] this work also highlights that the interactions between bacteria during an infection can be just as important as the interactions between the bacteria and the host.”