The researchers intend to use their discovery to develop a therapy for some antibiotic-resistant disease. Each year, antibiotic-resistant diseases kill over a million people worldwide.
Silver has been known for millennia to have antibacterial properties. Silver nanoparticles, on the other hand, are minuscule spheres of silver small enough to operate at the cellular level, representing a new frontier in employing the precious metal to battle germs.
Antibiotics Vs. Drug-Resistant Disease
The researchers plan to leverage their discovery to create a treatment for antibiotic-resistant disorders. Antibiotic-resistant illnesses kill over a million people worldwide each year.
This new study adds to the growing body of data that including AgNPs in antibiotics could improve their ability to inhibit drug-resistant bacteria and lower the global burden of antimicrobial resistance.
For millennia, silver has been known to have antimicrobial properties. Silver nanoparticles, on the other hand, are microscopic silver spheres small enough to work at the cellular level, offering a new frontier in using the precious metal to combat viruses.
As the research progresses, scientists are becoming more confident that they will be able to combine silver and antibiotics to create novel treatments that are effective against resistant bacteria.
This study discovered that combining AgNPs with the antibiotic vancomycin rendered gram-negative bacteria inactive. They also discovered that silver enhanced antibacterial activity against biofilms, which are colonies of tenacious bacteria that live together to promote growth and survival.
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The Study’s Results
This study published in Frontiers in Microbiology looked at the antibacterial activity of AgNPs as well as their safety in mammalian cells.
When AgNPs were introduced to the generic antibacterial medication colistin, the required dose to kill bacteria was roughly sevenfold reduced. This is crucial since colistin is a strong antibiotic that is only used as a last option against some resistant bacterial illnesses.
The study discovered the greatest synergy when AgNPs were used with aminoglycoside antibiotics, which are ribosome-targeting antibiotics commonly used to treat Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which causes a variety of infections. The effective dose of the generic aminoglycoside amikacin, in the example, was cut 22-fold, which is significant because bacteria are becoming increasingly resistant to aminoglycosides.
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