Researchers from Harvard Medical School and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have created a terrifying visualization showing how quickly bacteria can mutate to become resistant to antibiotics.
The study, published Friday in Science magazine, demonstrates how bacteria can evolve to outsmart the drugs designed to kill them off, even when subjected to increasing amounts of antibiotics.
Researchers built a giant petri dish called the “microbial evolution growth arena plate” – also known as MEGA plate. E.coli bacteria were then added to each end of the MEGA plate.
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The MEGA plate is divided into several sections where varying strengths of antibiotics were painted on, each one 10 times stronger than the last. The centre of the dish contained 1,000 times as much antibiotic as the area with the lowest dose.
A camera mounted about the giant petri dish monitored the bacteria’s progression over two weeks – taking images showing the bacteria die, survive and mutate to survive through the drug-ridden environment.
“We know quite a bit about the internal defense mechanisms bacteria use to evade antibiotics but we don’t really know much about their physical movements across space as they adapt to survive in different environments,” said study author Michael Baym.
“It’s a powerful illustration of how easy it is for bacteria to become resistant to antibiotics,” senior study investigator Roy Kishony added.
In 2015, the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy (CDDEP) released a study warning about “alarming rates of bacteria resistant to last-resort antibiotics.”
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“A rampant rise in antibiotic use poses a major threat to public health, especially when there’s no oversight on appropriate prescribing,” said Ramanan Laxminarayan, director of CDDEP. “Antibiotic use drives antibiotic resistance.”
The study urged doctors to refrain from using antibiotics as the default treatment for a host of mild ailments, including coughs, colds, and uncomplicated diarrhea, and instead consider antibiotics as “life-saving medicines.”
“If these trends continue, infections that could once be treated in a week or two could become routinely life-threatening and endanger millions of lives,” said author Dr. Sumanth Gandra.
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In November 2015, Chinese researchers announced the discovery of the MCR-1 gene that makes E. coli and some other bacteria resistant to colistin, an antibiotic considered the drug of last resort for some infections and diseases.
In January, scientists at the Public Health Agency of Canada’s (PHAC) National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg tested more than 1,000 bacterial samples collected from hospitals and provincial public health labs. Three tests came back positive, including one in a patient, leading public health to express concern about the loss of another antibiotic to resistance.
Researchers noted that this new study – thought to be the first large-scale look at how bacteria evolves – is not intended to directly mirror how bacteria adapt and thrive in hospitals. However, the study noted that it does provide a better idea of how bacteria behaves in “real-world environments” when compared to traditional lab tests.
— With files from Allison Vuchnich