Antibiotics simply don’t kill bacteria like people often think.
Antibiotics help kill bacteria and treat infections. But according to a new study, it also reduces the power of the immune system in the same task. This is an unprecedented side effect.
Scientists said the new discovery could dramatically change the way we use antibiotics in the future. In addition, they hope it will lead us to new solutions to the complexly developing antibiotic resistance worldwide.
Previously, we had known many side effects of antibiotics, including that it would destroy “good” bacteria, which are protecting our health. But new research on mice has revealed an additional side effect.
“Antibiotics interact with cells, especially immune cells in ways that we do not expect,” Jason Yang from Broad Institute, the world’s leading research center for gene technology. The collaboration between MIT and Harvard University said.
“The biochemical context, changed by antibiotics and cells in surrounding tissue, becomes a problem when you try to predict how a drug can work on different people or in infectious diseases. different coincides “.
The new research that Yang and colleagues carried out involves mice infected with E. coli. They gave them a common antibiotic, ciprofloxacin, with the same dose on human for treatment.
When analyzing biochemical changes in mice, the researchers found a variation of metabolites, controlling metabolism in the body: They directly affect mouse tissues that cause Ciprofloxacin-resistant E. coli is stronger.
In addition, antibiotics have limited respiratory activity in mouse immune cells, which reduces the immune system’s ability to fight E. coli. Large macrophages or leukocytes become less effective in killing bacteria.
“You often assume that antibiotics only significantly affect bacterial cells, but here, they seem to be activating both reactions in mammalian cells,” said James Collins, lead author of the study. Rescue from Broad Institute said.
“Drugs are making real changes, counteracting treatment efforts, reducing the susceptibility of bacteria to antibiotics, and these drugs also reduce the useful function of the cells. immune cells “.
All of these reactions mean that antibiotics are not simply killing bacteria like most people think. Drugs can have a profound effect on biochemical processes in animal cells, and can be human. The reactions are significant to the effectiveness of the treatment.
Although it indicates a new risk of antibiotics, scientists also look at opportunities in them. Understanding this resistance and immunity reduction process can help us find a way to reverse both effects.
There is also an idea that we can incorporate new drugs to prevent antibiotics from reducing immunity.
This is not new, when a study last year also showed that antibiotics can be harmful to the human immune system. However, in this case, the effect occurs in the intestinal microorganisms, and exactly how that happens is still unclear.
New research shows antibiotics affect macrophages in mice, and that is the real immune cells of the body. More research is needed to see if this effect occurs in humans.
So far we have only recorded this in an infection and an antibiotic. “We need to open more studies than animals with more antibiotics, before measuring metabolites in patients being treated with antibiotics to know what can happen”, Collins said.
New research has been published in Cell Host & Microbe magazine.