Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are a growing global problem, but of the solution may lie in copying the bacteria’s own weapons. Researchers in the Norwegian city of Tromsø has found a new bacteriocin, in a very common skin bacterium, which they describe in Microbiology Spectrum. Bacteriocin inhibits the growth of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that are often the cause of disease and can be difficult to treat.
One million deaths each year
The fact that we have medicines against bacterial infections is something many people take for granted. But increasing resistance among bacteria means that more and more antibiotics do not work. When the bacteria become resistant to the antibiotics we have available, we are left without a treatment option for very common diseases. Over one million people die each year as a result of antibiotic resistance.
The first step in developing new antibiotics is to look for substances that inhibit bacterial growth.
Sami name for an exciting discovery
The research group for child and youth health at UiT The Arctic University of Norway has studied substances that the bacteria themselves produce to inhibit the growth of competitors. These substances are called bacteriocins. Through the work, they have discovered a new bacteriocin, in a very common skin bacterium. Bacteriocin inhibits the growth of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that can be difficult to treat with common antibiotics.
The researchers have called the new bacteriocin Romsacin, after the Sami name for Tromsø, Romsa. The hope is that Romsacin can be developed into a new medicine for infections for which there is currently no effective treatment.
Long way to go
At the same time, researcher Runa Wolden at the Department of Clinical Medicine at UiT emphasizes that there is a long way to go before it is known whether Romsacin will be developed and taken into use as a new medicine. Because that’s how it is with basic research; you cannot say in advance when someone will make use of the results you produce.
“This discovery is the result of something we have been researching for several years. Developing Romsacin – or other promising substances – into new antibiotics is very expensive and can take 10-20 years,” says Wolden, who is part of the research group for child and youth health.
Effective against bacterial types
Before new antibiotics can be used as medicines, one needs to make sure that they are safe to use. Currently, researchers do not know how the bacteriocin works in humans. A further process will involve comprehensive testing, bureaucracy and marketing.
“This naturally means that there is a long way to go before we can say anything for sure. What we already know, however, is that this is a new bacteriocin, and that it works against some types of bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics. It’s exciting,” says Wolden.
The new bacteriocin is produced by a bacterium called Staphylococcus haemolyticus. The bacteriocin is not produced by all S. haemolyticus, but by one of the 174 isolates that the researchers have available in the freezer.
“We couldn’t know that before we started the project, and that’s one of the things that makes research fun,” says Wolden.
She says that ten years ago the researchers collected bacterial samples from healthy people when they wanted to compare S. haemolyticus in healthy people with those found in patients in hospital.
“Subsequently, we have done many experiments with these bacteria, and this is the result from one of our projects,” says Wolden.
One of the primary chlorine disinfectants currently used for hospital infection control does not kill off spores of the notorious cause of hospital-acquired infection Clostridioides difficile, according to a new study published in the journal Microbiology.
Research by the University of Plymouth has shown that C. Diff spores are completely unaffected despite being treated with high concentrations of bleach used in many hospitals.
In fact, the chlorine chemicals are no more effective at damaging the spores when used as a surface disinfectant – than using water with no additives.
The study’s authors say susceptible people working and being treated in clinical settings might be unknowingly placed at risk of contracting the superbug.
As a result, and with incidence of biocide overuse only serving to fuel rises in antimicrobial resistance (AMR) worldwide, they have called for urgent research to find alternative strategies to disinfect C. diff spores in order to break the chain of transmission in clinical environments.
Dr Tina Joshi, Associate Professor in Molecular Microbiology at the University of Plymouth, carried out the study with Humaira Ahmed, a fourth year Medicine student from the University’s Peninsula Medical School.
Dr Joshi, said: “With incidence of anti-microbial resistance on the rise, the threat posed by superbugs to human health is increasing. But far from demonstrating that our clinical environments are clean and safe for staff and patients, this study highlights the ability of C. diff spores to tolerate disinfection at in-use and recommended active chlorine concentrations. It shows we need disinfectants, and guidelines, that are fit for purpose and work in line with bacterial evolution, and the research should have significant impact on current disinfection protocols in the medical field globally.”
C. diff causes diarrhoea, colitis and other bowel complications, causing around 29 000 deaths per year in the USA, and almost 8500 in Europe, with the most recent data showing that, in the UK, incidence of C. diff infection was increasing prior to the start of the COVID pandemic.
Previously, Dr Joshi and colleagues had demonstrated the ability of C. diff spores to survive exposure to recommended concentrations of sodium dichloroisocyanurate in liquid form and within personal protective fabrics such as surgical gowns.
The new study examined spore response of three different strains of C. diff to three clinical in-use concentrations of sodium hypochlorite. The spores were then spiked onto surgical scrubs and patient gowns, examined using scanning electron microscopes to establish if there were any morphological changes to the outer spore coat.
Dr Joshi, who is on the Microbiology Society Council and Co-Chairs their Impact & Influence Committee, added: “Understanding how these spores and disinfectants interact is integral to practical management of C. diff infection and reducing the burden of infection in healthcare settings. However, there are still unanswered questions regarding the extent of biocide tolerance within C. diff and whether it is affected by antibiotic co-tolerance. With AMR increasing globally, the need to find those answers – both for C. diff and other superbugs – has never been more pressing.”
Red Blood Cell Infected with Malaria Parasites
Colourised scanning electron micrograph of red blood cell infected with malaria parasites (teal). The small bumps on the infected cell show how the parasite remodels its host cell by forming protrusions called ‘knobs’ on the surface, enabling it to avoid destruction and cause inflammation. Uninfected cells (red) have smoother surfaces. Credit: NIAID
New compounds are continuously required due to the risk of malaria parasites becoming resistant to the medicines currently used. A team of researchers at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) combined the anti-malaria drug artemisinin with coumarin, and developed a compound from both bioactive plant-derived substances. This compound is also autofluorescent, making it particularly useful as it can be used for imaging in live cells.
The working group, led by Prof Dr Svetlana B. Tsogoeva, also discovered that the autofluorescent artemisinin-coumarin hybrids are able to destroy a certain drug-resistant malaria pathogen called Plasmodium palcifarum. They published their findings in the journalChemical Science.
Artemisinin is a highly-effective and common ingredient for the manufacture of malaria medication gained from a plant called sweet wormwood (Artemisia annua L.). Coumarin is a secondary plant compound found in various plants.
In the development of drugs against malaria, active substances such as artemisinin are labelled with fluorescent substances in order to identify how they act against malaria pathogens in precise chronological order using imaging techniques.
Combining substances to achieve autofluorescence
A significant disadvantage of labeling with fluorescent substances is the fact that they alter how the medication works.
For example, this means that in certain circumstances cells infected with malaria absorb a drug like artemisinin differently after fluorescent marking than previously.
The solubility of the drug can also change. This was avoided by the development of autofluorescent hybrids, which are compounds made of two or more basic compounds that are inherently fluorescent and whose mode of action can be precisely observed using imaging techniques.
Active agent with special skills
The team decided to combine artemisinin with bioactive coumarins because coumarin derivatives also possess anti-malaria properties. They can also be easily chemically altered so that they become extremely fluorescent.
The researchers discovered that it was not only possible to observe the mode of action of this first autofluorescent artemisinin-coumarin hybrid in living red blood cells infected with P. falciparum.
In conjunction with Prof. Barbara Kappes (Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, FAU) and Dr. Diogo R. M. Moreira (Instituto Gonçalo Moniz, Fiocruz Bahia, Brazil), they also discovered that the active agent was highly effective against P. falciparum strains in vitro that are resistant to chloroquin and other malaria drugs.
Above all, however, the new compound also proved highly effective against the malaria pathogens in vivo in mouse models.
With the creation of the first autofluorescent artemisinin-coumarin hybrid, the FAU researchers hope that they have laid the foundation for the development of further autofluorescent agents for treating malaria and have made significant process in overcoming multi-drug resistance in the treatment of malaria.
Ischaemic and haemorrhagic stroke. Credit: Scientific Animations CC4.0
Contrary to the commonly-held view, the brain does not have the ability to rewire itself to compensate for conditions such as stroke, loss of sight or an amputation, say scientists in the journal eLife.
Professors Tamar Makin of Cambridge University and John Krakauer of Johns Hopkins University argue that the notion that the brain, in response to injury or deficit, can reorganise itself and repurpose particular regions for new functions, is fundamentally flawed – despite being commonly cited in scientific textbooks. Instead, they argue that what is occurring is merely the brain being trained to utilise already existing, but latent, abilities.
One of the most common examples given is where a person loses their sight – or is born blind – and the visual cortex, previously specialised in processing vision, is rewired to process sounds, allowing the individual to use a form of ‘echolocation’ to navigate a cluttered room. Another common example is of people who have had a stroke and are initially unable to move their limbs repurposing other areas of the brain to allow them to regain control.
Krakauer, Director of the Center for the Study of Motor Learning and Brain Repair at Johns Hopkins University, said: “The idea that our brain has an amazing ability to rewire and reorganise itself is an appealing one. It gives us hope and fascination, especially when we hear extraordinary stories of blind individuals developing almost superhuman echolocation abilities, for example, or stroke survivors miraculously regaining motor abilities they thought they’d lost.
“This idea goes beyond simple adaptation, or plasticity – it implies a wholesale repurposing of brain regions. But while these stories may well be true, the explanation of what is happening is, in fact, wrong.”
In their article, Makin and Krakauer look at a ten seminal studies that purport to show the brain’s ability to reorganise. They argue, however, that while the studies do indeed show the brain’s ability to adapt to change, it is not creating new functions in previously unrelated areas – instead it’s utilising latent capacities that have been present since birth.
For example, a 1980s study by Professor Michael Merzenich at University of California, San Francisco looked at what happens when a hand loses a finger. The hand has a particular representation in the brain, with each finger appearing to map onto a specific brain region. Remove the forefinger, and the area of the brain previously allocated to this finger is reallocated to processing signals from neighbouring fingers, argued Merzenich – in other words, the brain has rewired itself in response to changes in sensory input.
Not so, says Makin, whose own research provides an alternative explanation.
In a study published in 2022, Makin used a nerve blocker to temporarily mimic the effect of amputation of the forefinger in her subjects. She showed that even before amputation, signals from neighbouring fingers mapped onto the brain region ‘responsible’ for the forefinger — in other words, while this brain region may have been primarily responsible for process signals from the forefinger, it was not exclusively so. All that happens following amputation is that existing signals from the other fingers are ‘dialled up’ in this brain region.
Makin, from the Medical Research Council (MRC) Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit at the University of Cambridge, said: “The brain’s ability to adapt to injury isn’t about commandeering new brain regions for entirely different purposes. These regions don’t start processing entirely new types of information. Information about the other fingers was available in the examined brain area even before the amputation, it’s just that in the original studies, the researchers didn’t pay much notice to it because it was weaker than for the finger about to be amputated.”
Another compelling counterexample to the reorganisation argument is seen in a study of congenitally deaf cats, whose auditory cortex appears to be repurposed to process vision. But when they are fitted with a cochlear implant, this brain region immediately begins processing sound once again, suggesting that the brain had not, in fact, rewired.
Examining other studies, Makin and Krakauer found no compelling evidence that the visual cortex of individuals that were born blind or the uninjured cortex of stroke survivors ever developed a novel functional ability that did not otherwise exist.
Makin and Krakauer do not dismiss stories such as blind people navigating using hearing, or individuals who have experienced a stroke regain their motor functions. They argue instead that rather than completely repurposing regions for new tasks, the brain is enhancing or modifying its pre-existing architecture — and it is doing this through repetition and learning.
Understanding the true nature and limits of brain plasticity is crucial, both for setting realistic expectations for patients and for guiding clinical practitioners in their rehabilitative approaches, they argue.
Makin added: “This learning process is a testament to the brain’s remarkable – but constrained – capacity for plasticity. There are no shortcuts or fast tracks in this journey. The idea of quickly unlocking hidden brain potentials or tapping into vast unused reserves is more wishful thinking than reality. It’s a slow, incremental journey, demanding persistent effort and practice. Recognising this helps us appreciate the hard work behind every story of recovery and adapt our strategies accordingly.
“So many times, the brain’s ability to rewire has been described as ‘miraculous’ – but we’re scientists, we don’t believe in magic. These amazing behaviours that we see are rooted in hard work, repetition and training, not the magical reassignment of the brain’s resources.”
With frequent and long stints at their computers, the average gamer is a sedentary night owl, often compromising on sleep – especially quality sleep – and being exposed to too much blue light. The topic has been explored in University of Cape Town (UCT) PhD candidate Chadley Kemp’s doctoral thesis, a meaty study of over 70 000 words.
Kemp’s research into habitual gaming activities is supervised by Associate Professor Dale Rae, a sleep researcher and senior lecturer at the Health Through Physical Activity, Lifestyle and Sport Research Centre (HPALS) in the Faculty of Health Sciences.
This work is founded on Kemp’s 2018 research underpinning a master’s in medical science at UCT’s former Department of Exercise Science and Sports Medicine in the Sports Science Institute of South Africa. This was upgraded to a PhD in 2020.
His research (he is an esports and video game enthusiast) explores adult esports players’ sleep, health status, light exposure patterns and physical activity.
“We know that sleep affects mental functioning in general, but we weren’t sure about the extent to which this applied to esports players,” said Kemp.
Framework for healthier gameplay
Kemp’s goal is to produce objective data that will guide the development of a framework aimed at promoting healthier gameplay standards and encouraging policy reform within the esports industry.
The tests they used to assess neurocognitive performance were intended to serve as proxies for certain aspects of esports performance because they tested specific mental skills important to gaming, he added.
“We gathered it would be a useful addition to compel gamers to adopt better sleep and lifestyle behaviour changes if it meant … that their health would improve, and they would benefit from better in-game performance – and get an edge over their competitors!”
Kemp’s focus is not on professional gamers, but what he calls “the missing middle” of the esports community: the amateur and semi-competitive gamers.
“This group doesn’t have the same infrastructure and support as their professional counterparts,” he explained. “But what makes them particularly interesting is the fact that they have to balance their gaming commitments with holding down a job, studies, or juggling family or household commitments.”
Global attraction
Esports are burgeoning across the globe – and not only among competitive gamers but audiences too. Writing in the South African Journal of Sports Medicine, Kemp and his co-authors noted that globally competitive gaming attracts 532 million fans alone, according to statistics released in 2022.
However, his study wasn’t motivated by an influx of gamers presenting themselves with sleep difficulties at Associate Professor Rae’s sleep consultancy, Sleep Science. Rather, it stemmed from a broader observation and concern within the local esports community about gamers and poor-quality and short-duration sleep, high levels of sedentarism, and excessive exposure to artificial or electronic night at night.
Based on these conversations and endorsed by anecdotal evidence from within the esports industry, Kemp said he and Rae were able to determine that sleep curtailment had seemingly become a “rite of passage” among gamers. Primarily, most gaming takes place at night because of gamers’ daytime commitments.
As there wasn’t much literature on the topic (much of it is focused on the implications of gaming in children and adolescents) and most studies were survey-based and didn’t target esports players or those regularly engaged with gaming, there was significant knowledge gap that needed filling. As a demographic, Kemp is particularly interested in adult esports players because of the greater health risks posed by age and unhealthy lifestyle factors, such as smoking and alcohol consumption.
Because he needed a tool to measure sleep and physical activity concurrently, he validated the Actiwatch, a special research device, to do this. The device also measures light exposure. For his sample group, Kemp recruited eligible esports players and measured variables of interest. These were clinical measures (anthropometry, blood pressure, blood markers) and self-report data (questionnaires on sleep, chronotype, daytime sleepiness and gaming addiction) and their cognitive performance.
“We also included non-gamers in our study, so we could compare our gamers against people who were not gamers. In total, we had 59 male participants (31 gamers; 28 non-gamers). (The females volunteering to participate did not meet the study’s inclusion criteria.) For a week, these individuals wore the Actiwatch to track their sleep, physical activity, and light exposure.”
Key findings
The key findings of his research make for interesting reading:
esports players have comparable sleep duration to non-gamers (control group) but tend to sleep later than others. They hit the middle of their sleep cycle around 04:08 compared to 03:01 for the control group.
A much larger percentage of esports players (45.2%) showed night-oriented habits (or evening chronotypes), ie they are more active and alert at night. This is in contrast to only 7.1% of the control group showing similar evening tendencies.
They nap more during the day, but their night sleep duration is similar to that of the control groups.
There was no significant difference in risks related to heart diseases or metabolic diseases between the two groups, which Kemp speculates might be related to their young age. But most of the health markers were tentatively raised, which could point to worse cardiometabolic health in future.
Esports players smoke more.
Esports players performed better in brain-based tasks, showing better attention and accuracy, and making fewer mistakes.
Esports players are less active than the control group. They sit more (11.2 vs 9.1 hours a day) and are less physically active, whether it’s moderate- or vigorous-intensity activity.
Esports players have specific active and inactive hours. They are less active in the early morning and certain evening hours but are more active around midnight.
Esports players are exposed to dimmer light for a more significant part of their day, and their exposure to bright light happens later at night.
This work is important for several reasons, said Kemp. A key takeaway from the research revolves around chronotypes.
“Esports players seem to have sleep patterns that align with being night owls and this may be influenced both by their natural tendencies and their gaming habits. It’s also possible that a genetic disposition and exposure to artificial light from screens collectively contributes to these sleep patterns.
“The combined effect is thought to create a cycle where their preference for evening activities leads to more gaming, which in turn reinforces the night owl tendencies. This impacts on their sleep quality and quantity.”
He added: “Perhaps more obviously, gaming is a massively popular phenomenon that transcends age, sex, and geography. It’s a dominant form of entertainment and its competitive arm, esports, is progressing towards acceptance as a genuine form of sporting competition.”
From the neurocognitive side, it’s clear that gaming can sharpen several cognitive abilities, such as attention and problem-solving.
“However, the catch is, if you’re not getting enough sleep, these enhanced skills could take a hit,” said Kemp. “Gamers might see slower reactions, flawed decision-making, and even a drop in their in-game stamina. So, while gaming certainly has its merits and can even boost certain mental skills, it doesn’t come without health considerations. “
Kemp’s research is aimed at ensuring that anyone engaged with gaming or esports does so in a healthy way.
“The purpose is to create a steppingstone towards health regulation in gaming and esports,” he said. “By creating awareness and providing evidence-based recommendations to prevent chronic health problems caused by unhealthy gaming behaviour, it supports individual decision making, governments, and policy makers. It’s valuable to anyone involved in or impacted by gaming.”
Kemp’s guidelines for gamers:
Get between seven and nine hours’ sleep a night and keep a regular sleep schedule (on weekends too).
Set fixed waking and sleep times to establish a more robust sleep–wake cycle.
For better sleep, ensure your bedroom is dark, quiet, and cool (16-18°C is optimal).
Limit the amount of light exposure in the hours before bedtime (including light from phones, laptops, TVs, etc).
Limit caffeine to the morning and afternoon. This means no energy drinks during those night-time gaming sessions).
