Health Experts Warn of Antibiotic Resistant MRSA

Liu and co-senior study author David Underhill of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center have done similar studies on this earlier and suspected that the ill effects of MRSA could be a direct result of the gene that leads to antibiotic resistance. MRSA was in the news last month when Daniel Fells, a NY Giants footballer, got admitted to the hospital for getting treated for it.

The US Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) says that MRSA is primarily known to cause skin infections and a range of other infections. In a hospital, however, it can cause severe problems such as bloodstream infections, pneumonia and surgical site infections. The researchers said that these figures showed that MRSA is one of America’s most prominent antibiotic-resistant pathogens.

Given the scale of the MRSA threat, the research team wanted to investigate what makes MRSA so pathogenic.

This deadly superbug, in fact, continues building cell walls and the walls are different as compared to the ones which were built during regular staph infections.

According to researchers, mice that were infected with MRSA superbug became sicker when treated with antibiotics – beta-lactam. It is so frequent that about one-third of the population carries it, and about 2 % of the population is colonized with resistant form.

It causes 11,000 related deaths per year. Eventually, the person becomes much sicker and the infection possibly stronger. So scientists are now fearing that the doctors will have to go through a state of predicament during this couple of days before they could eventually decide on whether or not they should prescribe beta-lactam antibiotics in that particular case.

The researchers did say however that their study only included mice.

Tests in mice showed that when MRSA (methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus) bugs are exposed to the antibiotics, a gene in the microbe is activated that results in fragments of cell wall being released.

However, one of these enzymes called PBP2A is not turned off in MRSA when the infection is exposed to the antibiotics. They found that exposure of MRSA to beta-lactam antibiotics induced mecA activation, which weakened the chemical bonds between molecules in the cell wall and rendered the bacteria more easily degradable by immune cells.

The authors said their study findings in mice raised the possibility that prescribing beta-lactam antibiotics to treat infections in humans may worsen the infection, should the source prove to be MRSA.

Staphylococcus aureus, often referred to simply as “staph”, is a type of bacteria commonly carried on the skin or in the nose of healthy people. The typical treatment is beta-lactam.

The scientists gave a high number of MRSA bacteria to the mice, eliciting an infection.

Findings of this new study may have significant clinical implications, because many MRSA-infected patients are put at risk by initial inappropriate antibiotic treatment with beta-lactam antibiotics. “How that translates to human infection is less clear”.

It inhibits the formation of peptidoglycan cross-links in the bacterial cell wall.

“This adapted cell wall causes a strong inflammatory reaction”.

“In situations where there is a lot of infection, this highly aggressive response can cause extensive inflammation and tissue damage, effectively making the consequences of the infection worse”, Liu said. They are a first line of defense when the origin of an infection isn’t known, researchers said. It could take a day or perhaps two to conclude if MRSA indeed is the culprit.

Trials on humans are needed before researchers can suggest guidelines for correct antibiotic use to treat staph and MRSA. Thus, MRSA-infected patients are put at risk due to first antibiotic treatments that were wrong. “Our hope is that by understanding better the pros and cons of picking between the various antibiotics that are available, we can improve patient care”.