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CATHEXE

GOLD MEDAL WINNER 2023

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Each year over 100,000,000 people are affected by health care-associated infections[1]

Of these infections 2/3 are biofilm related[2]

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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!

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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].

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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

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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.

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The ica operon is a collection of genes gated by a promoter in each direction

During biofilm production the ADBC chain is triggered.

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Producing various surface proteins that catalyse production of exopolysaccharide glue

This glue is integral to the biofilm structure[7]

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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.

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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

  1. World Health Organization, 2011. Report on the burden of endemic health care-associated infection worldwide.
  2. 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
  3. 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
  4. 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
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.