Body Fluids Protect Us From Stubborn Bugs

Cosmiverse.com

Bodily secretions such as tears, mucus and breast milk contain a natural agent that fights the formation of deadly drug-resistant bacteria called biofilms, according to recent research.

Biofilms are bacteria bunched together in a community rather than a single existence. Reuters clarified, "It is now understood that in many chronic infections, bacteria are not living as individuals, but are rather living in groups--community structures," said lead author Dr. Pradeep K. Singh of the University of Iowa in Iowa City.

Functioning as a colony, biofilms are highly resistant to antibiotics and attack medical implants, wounds of patients with diabetes and the lungs of patients with cystic fibrosis. Interestingly, biofilms normally prey on the weak.

"Biofilm infections are a major medical problem," says Pradeep Singh of the University of Iowa, who led the new work. "But though the human body is constantly exposed to disease-causing bacteria, biofilms do not normally form unless a person's defenses have been compromised by disease. This suggested to us that the body might have a natural anti-biofilm defense mechanism."

The natural defense mechanism researchers focused on was a protein called lactoferrin which occurs naturally in tears, mucus and breast milk. Singh and his team found that low concentrations of lactoferrin prevent bacteria from forming the deadly biofilm colonies. The protecting protein laps up iron leaving bacteria starving for the critical nutrient.

Without iron, bacteria are more likely to continue searching for nutrition rather than joining with other bacteria and creating the biofilm colony. Researchers grew Pseudomonas aeruginosa; a bacterium found in the lungs of patients with cystic fibrosis. Small amounts of lactoferrin were unable to kill the bacteria or slow its growth, but it stopped the formation of biofilms leaving the bacteria exposed and more vulnerable to antibiotics.

Bacteria in the lungs of patients with cystic fibrosis are not protected by the body's natural production of lactoferrin. While the exact reason for this is still a mystery, researchers suspect that previous infections may have so severely damaged the cells lining the lung that their ability to make the protective protein has been compromised. To artificially provide the protective protein for patients with cystic fibrosis would require quantities that could be toxic.

According to New Scientist, other groups are working on alternative approaches to tackling biofilms. A team in Australia successfully coated catheters with furanones - chemicals produced by marine algae to protect themselves from bacterial attack.

"Because of the difficulty of this problem, multiple approaches will probably be needed to develop effective anti-biofilm therapies," Singh says. Reuters reported, "Lactoferrin holds more promise as a coating for medical devices, according to Singh. As foreign materials with no innate defenses against bacteria, implantable devices are at risk of developing biofilms. In addition, biofilms can form on neighboring tissues that have been disturbed by the foreign object."

Coating the medical devices with lactoferrin could provide a solution to avoiding the infections that so commonly go hand in hand with implanting medical devices such as catheters and artificial joints.

Source: University of Iowa; Nature; New Scientist; Reuters

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