Far be it from me to let you go a week without something new (but also kinda neat) to fret over. According to a recent Brunel University of London press release, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a common infection caused by Pseudomonas bacteria, isn't just a superbug that's proven wickedly resistant to antibiotics – it has a second party trick that has clinicians concerned: it loves to feast on medical-grade plastics of the sort you'd find in a hospital.
From Brunel University of London:
Microbiologists at Brunel University of London show the bacteria can 'feed' on plastic to survive, potentially enabling these pathogens to survive longer in hospital wards and within patients.
The world-first discovery, published in Cell Reports, challenges the widely held belief that pathogens cannot degrade medical plastics. A patient isolate of the common hospital-acquired bacterial infection Pseudomonas aeruginosa was shown to degrade polycaprolactone (PCL) – a plastic often used in sutures, wound dressings, stents, drug-delivery patches and surgical mesh.
Given that the bacteria is responsible for around 560,000 deaths worldwide every year, that's what you call a problem. Pseudomonas is particularly dangerous for those living with an autoimmune deficiency. Given its resistance to treatment, a case of Pseudomonas aeruginosa could kill them. But it's also tricky to deal with for healthy folks, as it can cause problems such as sepsis, UTIs, or skin, lung, and blood infections. Give it plastic to chomp on – the sort found in stents, breast implants, catheter tubing, and some sutures – and Pseudomonas devours it like gravy and biscuits. That's bad enough… but there's more. The bacteria use the mulched medical plastics to strengthen their defenses against treatment.
For now, there's not much that our biggest brains can do about this issue. It's going to take a lot more study and, potentially, solutions beyond antibiotics to sort it out.
Stay healthy and hope for the best.
Previously:
• 100-million-year-old seafloor sediment bacteria have been resuscitated
• Human beds have much more saliva and fecal bacteria than chimp beds
• Flesh eating bacteria that causes genitals to 'rot away' pops up in the UK
• Miraculous communion wafer just infested with bacteria
• Gengineered concrete-patching bacteria: BacillaFilla
• Bacteria found that feeds on toxic 'forever chemicals'
• Primitive Technology: Making cement out of iron bacteria
