Noses In The Fight Against MRSA Infection

A particularly hard-to-treat bacterial infection may have some competition making it harder for it to put up its shield of resistance.  The methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, better known as MRSA, has evaded scientist’s best efforts to bring this potentially deadly superbug to its knees.  Now it looks like a possible answer to fighting it back is right under or actually, in our nose.

This “unexpected and exciting” discovery, as quoted by microbiologist, Andreas Peschel of the University of Tuebingen in Germany, has researchers cautiously optimistic.  The researchers have isolated a bacterium found in our nose called Stahylococcus lugdunensis that so far is able to put a strong hold on MRSA by effectively killing it off.  This new antibiotic, which has been called “lugdunin” was tested on mice whose skin was infected with MRSA.  Lugdunin was able to destroy MRSA in most cases of the mice.

For years researchers have been diligently searching for ways to treat MRSA infections but with minimal success. With little progress being made, researchers have warned that unless antibiotic superbugs such as MRSA are stopped in their tracks, the threat of these virulent bacteria could kill 10 million people a year worldwide by 2050 or one death every three seconds making it more deadly than cancer.  Currently MRSA kills about 20,000 people a year.

MRSA has been a problem in hospitals and healthcare settings for a long time and mainly causes skin infections resulting in sepsis, surgical site infections, or pneumonia.   It is a type of bacterium extremely resistant to many common antibiotics making it very difficult to treat.  MRSA is very contagious and easily spread by skin-to-skin contact or by touching contaminated objects such as a towel, weight training equipment or a shared jar of ointment if they were touched by someone infected with MRSA bacteria.

Typically antibiotics are discovered by sifting through soil samples but the German researchers decided to look at germs inhabiting our noses.  This study published in the journal Nature, cultured the nasal mucus from 37 participants with MRSA to watch what happened.  This is when they discovered the compound lugdunin effectively stopped MRSA in its tracks from growing by clearing the hard-to-treat infection by penetrating tissue on mice skin going deep into the layers of skin to wipe out MRSA.

It has always puzzled researchers as to why some people appear to be susceptible to MRSA infections while others are not.  What this research shows is that while 30 percent of people have Staphlocococcus aureus bacteria in their nose, 70 percent of people do not.  The answer appears to be the other in-nose bacterium – lugdunin – found in some people’s noses is doing its job of fighting off MRSA every chance it gets by producing its own antibody.

At this time, tests on whether this new antibiotic works in humans have not been conducted.  But it does give scientists a glimmer of hope of finding a possible solution to MRSA’s grip.   As Peschel speculate, research is just beginning and even if the lugdunin bacterium does not turn out to be the answer at least it might be possible to adapt lugdunin or transfer key genes helping in the fight against MRSA.