It killed Acinetobacter baumannii 65% of the time and Pseudomonas aeruginosa 70% of the time; when paired with antibiotics, that percentage increased to an astonishing 94%.
Researchers at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) in Beersheba have found that cruciferous vegetables like broccoli may be able to break down biofilms that make bacteria resistant to antibiotics.
Because pathogens make biofilms that protect them from being killed, so many types of bacteria are now resistant to antibiotics. This makes drug companies much less likely to make new antibiotics.
During the research conducted by the BGU team, the phytochemical 3,3′-diindolylmethane (DIM) effectively destroyed the biofilms protecting the two distinct infections.
It eliminated Acinetobacter baumannii 65 percent of the time and Pseudomonas aeruginosa 70 percent of the time; when paired with antibiotics, its efficacy increased to a staggering 94 percent.
When they injected the phytochemical into an infected wound, it greatly accelerated the healing process. Antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections have an increasing role in the spread of disease and impede wound healing, particularly in hospitals.
The startup company LifeMatters is currently working to advance the technology’s development and commercialization. It is a privately held, pre-clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company that is creating fresh strategies to combat resistant bacteria that frequently live in the lungs of people with cystic fibrosis (CF) and other respiratory conditions.
CF is a hereditary condition that affects the cells that make perspiration, mucus, and digestive secretions as well as the lungs, digestive system, and other bodily organs.
Normally, these produced fluids are thin and slick, but in CF sufferers, a faulty gene makes the secretions thick and sticky. The secretions clog up tubes, ducts, and passages rather of lubricating them, particularly in the pancreas and lungs.
Prof. Ariel Kushmaro, Dr. Karina Golberg, and his colleagues, as well as Prof. Robert Marks, are all members of BGU’s Goldstein-Goren Department of Biotechnology Engineering, and their findings were just published in the peer-reviewed journal Pharmaceutics.
Bat-el Kagan, Sigalit Barzanizan, Dr. Karin Yaniv, and Dr. Esti Kramarsky-Winter were other researchers from Prof. Kushmaro’s team who partnered with Near East University and Girne American University in Cyprus.
“By eliminating the P. aeruginosa bacterial biofilm,” according to Kushmaro, “they make it possible for the innate immune system to eradicate the infection, improve the quality of life and prolong the life-span of CF patients, so that patients can live fuller lives with a much-more-treatable infection.”
The findings of the study “show promise for other avenues of research in addition to known classes of antibiotics,” Kushmaro added.
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