GOLD MEDAL WINNER 2023
Each year over 100,000,000 people are affected by health care-associated infections[1]
Of these infections 2/3 are biofilm related[2]
And 1/3 are catheter related[3]
These infections prolong hospital stays, negatively impact patient health and cost over $40 billion a year[4]. Thats the cost of 200 billion petri-dishes!
Biofilm formation can be broken into four key stages:
Attatchment.
Adhesion using exopolysaccharide glue.
Continued growth.
Spreading through cell release[5]
This leads to an infection with increased resilience against traditional treatments such as antibiotics[6].
To tackle this problem we are using modified Lactiplantibacillus plantarum
It is a probiotic found throughout the body and in a variety of food items
This will be used to create a protective coating for urinary catheters, preventing biofilm growth on their surface
It will do this by disrupting the infectious cells' inner workings.
The ica operon is a collection of genes gated by a promoter in each direction
During biofilm production the ADBC chain is triggered.
Producing various surface proteins that catalyse production of exopolysaccharide glue
This glue is integral to the biofilm structure[7]
To prevent this we instead trigger the repressor R gene through a variety of molecules called quorum quenchers. This prevents proteins synthesis,
therefore preventing exopolysaccharide glue production, and therefore the biofilm cannot form.
If successful, our coating could prevent a large number of healthcare associated infections. Saving huge amounts of time and money for healthcare systems worldwide.
References
- World Health Organization, 2011. Report on the burden of endemic health care-associated infection worldwide.
- Stoodley P, Hall-Stoodley L, Costerton B, DeMeo PJ, Shirtliff ME, Gawalt ES, et al. Biofilms, biomaterials, and Device-Related infections. In: Elsevier eBooks [Internet]. 2013. p. 77–101. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-323-22805-3.00005-0
- Boisvert AA, Cheng MP, Sheppard D, Nguyen DM. Microbial biofilms in pulmonary and critical care diseases. Annals of the American Thoracic Society [Internet]. 2016 Sep 1;13(9):1615–23. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1513/annalsats.201603-194fr
- Haque M, Sartelli M, McKimm J, Bakar MA. Health care-associated infections an overview. Infection and Drug Resistance [Internet]. 2018 Nov 1;Volume 11:2321–33. Available from: https://doi.org/10.2147/idr.s177247
- Wi YM, Patel R. Understanding Biofilms and Novel Approaches to the Diagnosis, Prevention, and Treatment of Medical Device-Associated Infections. Infect Dis Clin North Am. 2018;32(4):915-29.
- The role of bacterial biofilms in antimicrobial resistance | ASM.org [Internet]. ASM.org. Available from: https://asm.org/Articles/2023/March/The-Role-of-Bacterial-Biofilms-in-Antimicrobial-Re#:~:text=Various%20components%20work%20in%20tandem,a%20phenomenon%20known%20as%20recalcitrance.
- Lerch MF, Schoenfelder SMK, Marincola G, Wencker FDR, Eckart M, Förstner KU, et al. A non-coding RNA from the intercellular adhesion (ica) locus of Staphylococcus epidermidis controls polysaccharide intercellular adhesion (PIA)-mediated biofilm formation. Molecular Microbiology. 2019;111(6):1571-91.