In the fight against drug resistant bacteriaresearchers at McMaster University in Hamilton are recruiting an unexpected army: ants, bees and beetles.
These tiny creatures could hold the key to discovering revolutionary new antibiotics and thwarting antimicrobial resistancealso known as superbugs.
Indeed, insects like leafcutter ants have figured out a clever trick: They grow fungal gardens for food, and in return, they have formed a symbiotic partnership with bacteria that produce powerful antimicrobial chemicals to protect their crops. .
This centuries-old relationship, now being studied by a team at McMaster University, could offer a way to help combat antimicrobial resistance.
“These ants are amazing organisms. They cut leaves and use those leaves to grow a fungus for food,” explained Cameron Currie, lead researcher and professor of biochemistry and biomedicine at McMaster University. “And so they practice what is the equivalent of human agriculture, they grow their own food source, and that’s what they use to feed and raise their young.”
However, these ants face a major challenge: fungal diseases that threaten their mushroom gardens. To overcome this problem, ants have evolved to host bacteria that secrete antimicrobial substances, thereby keeping their crops disease-free.
The bacteria get a nutrient-rich place to live and the ants get disease-free crops, creating what Currie calls a “symbiosis.” And that relationship, he added, could inspire new approaches to solving the growing problem of antimicrobial resistance in humans.
A growing global health crisis
Antimicrobial resistance is one of the main global threats to public health and development, according to the World Health Organization.
This happens when bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites become resistant to the drugs we need to treat infections. This means that once easily treatable illnesses, like pneumonia or tuberculosis, could become much more difficult, if not impossible, to cure.
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“So antimicrobial resistance, the situation where pathogens that attack humans develop resistance to the antibiotics we use to treat them, is a major problem,” Currie said.
“One of the things we need to do is discover new chemicals, new antibiotics to treat infectious diseases that these human pathogenic bacteria and fungi haven’t had a chance to develop resistance to. So we need new antibiotics.
Antibiotics used to treat infections come from bacteria in the soil, which scientists study and turn into medicines, Currie explained. Similarly, ants, as well as other insects, use related bacteria to produce antimicrobials. His team is now focusing on studying these bacteria from ants to explore their potential for new antibiotics.
So far, the McMaster team’s research has identified more than 10 new antimicrobial substances from these bacteria on ants, some of which have shown promise in preclinical trials, including for treating fungal infections.
The ants used in these tests come from all over the world, including Costa Rica and Brazil. Researchers go to these locations to collect the ants, isolate the bacteria, and bring the ants and their colonies back to the Hamilton lab for examination.
Other insects also participate in their research, such as bees, wasps and beetles.
Julian Rosati, a second-year biochemistry student at McMaster University, worked on bees and said participating in the research was an eye-opening experience.
“It taught me that we don’t need to look in the craziest places to find new antibiotics, because they might be right here, in places you wouldn’t expect to look,” he declared.
The team has discovered antimicrobials that are highly effective against bacterial infections, but Currie noted that the most promising compounds are those targeting fungi.
“Fungal diseases are a growing problem because fungi are closely related to humans. So we have very few antimicrobials or antifungals to treat fungal diseases,” Currie said. “And there is a lot of concern around Candida auris, this emerging, multidrug-resistant fungal disease that is spreading across the world and poses a major threat.”
Fungal infection proved fatalparticularly in people with compromised immune systems, and has demonstrated the ability to spread easily in health care settings.
Currie and his team hope their new antimicrobial compounds could lead to innovative treatment options. The next step, he explained, is to test whether these compounds can effectively treat human diseases in a mouse model.
“We have a number of molecules from ants that have shown what we call their effectiveness. So efficiency in a mouse model and also security. And that’s a really important step to bring something closer to the clinic.
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