by With an excellent host for slimy biofilms created by bacteria to protect themselves from the attack, the microplastics can contribute to proliferation of dangerous antibiotic-resistant super bugs, a new study.
“Microplastics are like rafts – a separate bacteria may not be able to swim down a river, but to ride in his biofilm with a tiny plastic, it can be spread to many different environments,” said the first author of the first author Neila Gross, a doctoral student in materials science and engineering at Boston University.
Biofilms are protective three -dimensional structures that are generated by bacteria from their own waste. Similar to an armored and isolated house, the OOZY GOOE enables bacteria to live safely, thrive and replicate.
While many surfaces can have an effect on biofilms – the plaque on its teeth is a biofilm – plastics seem to offer a particularly strong bond that, according to the study, attracts the most productive bacteria.
“Biofilms are quite angry to get out because they are super sticky and the bacteria react to antimicrobial attacks by enemies such as antibiotics. As soon as this happens, the problem will be very difficult to manage, ”said Muhammad Zaman, investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and professor of biomedical engineering and global health at Boston University.
In fact, biofilms work so well that they can increase the antibiotics resistance hundreds to thousands of times above what is normal, said Zaman.
“We found the connection between microplastics and how they lead to antimicrobial resistance, both real and not to a single antibiotic,” said Zaman. “It is wide and affects many frequently used antibiotics, which it really makes really worrying.”
The size of microplastics is in a size of 1 nanometer to 5 millimeters, the largest in the size of an eraser of the pencil rubber, say experts. – Svetlozar Hristov/iStockphoto/Getty Images
Stronger, faster and antibiotic resistant
The study used in the magazine on Tuesday, applied environmental and microbiology, analyzed biofilms on microplastics and glass created by E. coli, a potentially dangerous bacteria that can cause diarrhea and stomach pain.
In test tubes in the laboratory, researchers suspended these biofilms four widespread antibiotics: ciprofloxacin, doxycycline, fluorchinolone and ampicillin. All are broadband antibiotics that are used to treat many different types of bacterial diseases.
When the E. coli-biofilms were on microplastics, they became dramatically faster, larger and antibiotic-resistant than biofilms that grow on glass balls, the study found.
In fact, the rate of antibiotic resistance due to the microplasty E. coli was so high that the gross tests repeated the tests with different types of microplastic and combinations of antibiotics several times. The results remained consistent, she said.
In addition, the E. coli bacteria grown on microplastics kept their ability to form stronger biofilms, even if they were removed from the microplastics, Gross said.
“These bacteria were not only resistant to antibiotics, but also better in creating biofilm,” she said. “So that microplastics enable bacteria as faster, better biofilm formers, it is quite worrying.”
The results have to be replicated in an interesting way, said Shilpa Chokshi, Professor of Environmental Hepatology at the University of Plymouth, England, who was not involved in the study.
“This was a laboratory study with E. coli and four antibiotics under controlled conditions that do not completely replicated the complexity of the real world,” said Chokshi in a statement. “Further examinations are required to assess whether these effects lead to human infections or environmental settings.”
More CNN messages and newsletter create an account at CNN.com
