Gram-negative Bacteria Defy Drug Solutions

Posted on March 1, 2009  Comments (1)

Deadly bacteria defy drugs, alarming doctors by Mary Engel

Acinetobacter doesn’t garner as many headlines as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, the dangerous superbug better known as MRSA. But a January report by the Infectious Diseases Society of America warned that drug-resistant strains of Acinetobacter baumannii and two other microbes — Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Klebsiella pneumoniae — could soon produce a toll to rival MRSA’s.

The three bugs belong to a large category of bacteria called “gram-negative” that are especially hard to fight because they are wrapped in a double membrane and harbor enzymes that chew up many antibiotics. As dangerous as MRSA is, some antibiotics can still treat it, and more are in development, experts say.

But the drugs once used to treat gram-negative bacteria are becoming ineffective, and finding effective new ones is especially challenging.

For the most part, gram-negative bacteria are hospital scourges — harmless to healthy people but ready to infect already-damaged tissue. The bacteria steal into the body via ventilator tubes, catheters, open wounds and burns, causing pneumonia, urinary tract infections, and bone, joint and bloodstream infections.

Pseudomonas is widely found in soil and water, and rarely causes problems except in hospitals.

Related: Superbugs – Deadly Bacteria Take HoldCDC Urges Increased Effort to Reduce Drug-Resistant InfectionsMRSA Blows Up Defender Cellsposts on antibiotics

One Response to “Gram-negative Bacteria Defy Drug Solutions”

  1. Search for Antibiotic Solutions Continues: Killing Sleeper Bacteria Cells » Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog
    November 15th, 2013 @ 4:56 am

    […] works on gram positive antibiotics. ADEP4 is too big to pass through the extra outer layers of the gram-negative bacteria like ecoli and […]

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