United States: Standard pneumonia treatment exposures enabled researchers to eliminate Lyme disease from mice using 100 times reduced drug amounts.
The drug administered at reduced measurements preserved most of the animals’ gut microbial populations through its specific pathogen-targeting mechanism.
More about the news
The bacteria from the Borrelia genus primarily infect birds and rodents, yet human beings become infected by tick bites that these animals previously fed on.
The pathogen causes both flu-analogous symptoms and distinctive circular rash patterns in patients.
Medical experts have identified fatigue and aches as severe, long-term complications that develop from untreated Lyme disease cases.
Doctors recommend that patients take doxycycline at high doses two times per day for an extended period of three weeks to treat the condition.
The treatment stops bacterial protein production for survival; however, it lacks any selective action on Borrelia species.
As per Brandon Jutras at Northwestern University in Illinois, “It wreaks havoc on the normal [gut] microbiome,” newscientist.com reported.
Jutras, together with his colleagues, began by testing 450 different FDA-approved antibiotics in laboratory conditions against Borrelia burgdorferi, which is the primary Lyme disease bacterium.
Research investigators tested the top-pick medications to evaluate their impact on regular bacteria that populate human and mouse intestinal tracts, specifically Escherichia coli bacteria strains.
Research conducted by the scientists indicated that piperacillin achieved the highest level of selectivity in destroying B. burgdorferi, an antibiotic that belongs to the penicillin class.
The researchers proceeded to administer B. burgdorferi to 46 mice through injections.
After three weeks had passed, the researchers administered different doses of piperacillin or doxycycline to the animals through twice-daily treatments for one week.