科学者は腸内微生物叢を保護する化合物を発見

保護解毒剤は、有害な細菌に対する抗生物質の有効性を妨げることなく、特定の腸内微生物を保護することができます.

抗生物質は細菌感染と戦うのに役立ちますが、腸内に住む有用な微生物にも害を及ぼす可能性があります. これは、長期にわたる健康への影響をもたらす可能性があります。

デンマークのコペンハーゲンで開催された今年の欧州臨床微生物学感染症会議 (ECCMID) で発表された新しい研究では、有害な細菌に対する有効性を損なうことなく、抗生物質によって引き起こされる付随的な損傷を軽減する可能性のあるいくつかの保護薬が特定されました。

ドイツのハイデルベルクにある欧州分子生物学研究所のリサ・マイヤー博士とカミーユ・V・ゴーマンズ博士と同僚​​によるユニークな研究は、最も一般的な腸内細菌の存在量に対する144種類の抗生物質の影響を分析し、新しい洞察を提供します。腸内微生物叢に対する抗生物質治療の悪影響を減らすことに。

人間の腸内の何兆もの微生物は、消化を助け、栄養素と代謝物を提供し、免疫系と協力して有害な細菌やウイルスを撃退することにより、健康に大きな影響を与えます.

抗生物質はこれらの微生物群集に損傷を与える可能性があり、その結果、バランスが崩れ、胃腸の問題が再発する可能性があります。 クロストリジオイデス・ディフィシル 感染症だけでなく、肥満、アレルギー、喘息、およびその他の免疫疾患または炎症性疾患などの長期的な健康問題。

このよく知られている巻き添え被害にもかかわらず、どの抗生物質がどの種類の細菌に影響を与えるか[{” attribute=””>species, and whether these negative side effects be mitigated has not been studied systematically because of technical challenges.

To find out more, researchers systematically analyzed the growth and survival of 27 different bacterial species commonly found in the gut following treatment with 144 different antibiotics. They also assessed the minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) – the minimal concentration of an antibiotic required to stop bacteria from growing – for over 800 of these antibiotic-bacteria combinations.

The results revealed that the majority of gut bacteria had slightly higher MICs than disease-causing bacteria, suggesting that at commonly used antibiotic concentrations, most of the tested gut bacteria would not be affected.

However, two widely used antibiotic classes – tetracyclines and macrolides – not only stopped healthy bacteria growing at much lower concentrations than those required to stop the growth of disease-causing bacteria, but they also killed more than half of the gut bacterial species they tested, potentially altering the gut microbiome composition for a long time.

As drugs interact differently across different bacterial species, the researchers investigated whether a second drug could be used to protect the gut microbes. They combined the antibiotics erythromycin (a macrolide) and doxycycline (a tetracycline) with a set of 1,197 pharmaceuticals to identify suitable drugs that would protect two abundant gut bacterial species (Bacteriodes vulgatus and Bacteriodes uniformis) from the antibiotics.

The researchers identified several promising drugs including the anticoagulant dicumarol, the gout medication benzbromarone, and two anti-inflammatory drugs, tolfenamic acid and diflunisal.

Importantly, these drugs did not compromise the effectiveness of the antibiotics against disease-causing bacteria.

Further experiments showed that these antidote drugs also protected natural bacterial communities derived from human stool samples and in living mice.

“This Herculean undertaking by an international team of scientists has identified a novel approach that combines antibiotics with a protective antidote to help keep the gut microbiome healthy and reduce the harmful side effects of antibiotics without compromising their efficiency,” says Dr. Ulrike Löber, of the Max-Delbrück-Center for Molecular Medicine in Berlin, Germany who is presenting the research at ECCMID. “Despite our promising findings, further research is needed to identify optimum and personalized combinations of antidote drugs and to exclude any potential long-term effects on the gut microbiome.”

This article is based on abstract LB037 at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) annual meeting. The material has been peer reviewed by the congress selection committee. The research is based on a study published in the journal Nature in 2021 Unravelling the collateral damage of antibiotics on gut bacteria.