“Communication breakdown” to silence bacterial infections?

Few classes of disease over the course of history can match the uncanny persistence and destruction of bacterial infections.

During the middle ages, poor sanitation and overcrowded living conditions of European cities were responsible for a number of epidemics — bubonic plague, cholera, leprosy and tuberculosis. Fast forward a few centuries. Despite the wealth of knowledge on various types of bacterial disease, they still pose a grave danger to people and have also managed to thrive in unlikely conditions. Cholera, for instance, was eradicated for a century but emerged again in Africa and Latin America; and cases of tuberculosis — a lethal infectious disease affecting humanity for thousands of years — are on the rise.

Scientists aren’t backing down from the problem. They are devising new strategies to fight disease-causing bacteria that have, through the course of history, caused millions of deaths.

Elena Piletska and colleagues are reporting the first attempt to silence biochemical conversations that bacteria use to marshal forces and cause infections. They describe use of specially designed plastic-like materials to block substances that bacteria produce and pass to one another — a signaling process called “quorum sensing.” These messages passed to and from disease-causing microbes are essential to causing infections, which could range from mild illnesses to death.

The special plastics, similar to those dentists use to repair damaged teeth, have captured signaling molecules in lab experiments. This bacterial “communication breakdown” using easy-to-make, chemically inert polymers could provide a new concept for the development of pharmaceuticals and susceptible device coatings such as catheters, Piletska says. The plastics also reduced the ability of the bacteria to form biofilms, which bacteria use as a refuge to multiply. The study appears in ACS’ monthly journal, Biomacromolecules.