ReportWire

Tag: American Society for Microbiology (ASM)

  • COVID quelled GI viruses, but resurgence after 2 years

    COVID quelled GI viruses, but resurgence after 2 years

    Newswise — Washington, D.C. –  Following the first stay-at-home orders issued in the U.S. to curb the spread of COVID-19, gastrointestinal viruses such as norovirus, rotavirus and adenovirus all but disappeared from California communities, and remained at very low levels for nearly 2 years. The research is published in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

    Interestingly, these viruses surged back to pre-pandemic levels in late 2022, said Niaz Banaei, M.D., professor of Pathology and Medicine (Infectious Diseases), Stanford University, and Medical Director of Clinical Microbiology Laboratory, Stanford Health Care. “Adenovirus F40/41, the adenovirus strains most frequently associated with gastroenteritis, actually jumped to levels two-fold higher than pre-pandemic levels.” 

    Banaei suspects that the surge in viral infections was enabled by the waning of collective community immunity from lack of exposure during the pandemic. “Something similar has been described for the surge in respiratory syncytial virus infections in 2022,” he said. 

    To identify changes in the prevalence of gastrointestinal pathogens, the investigators compared detection rates for community acquired gastrointestinal pathogens before, during and after California’s COVID-related shelter-in-place. To that end, they used a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) panel test called the BioFire FilmArray GI panel, which tests for 22 of the most common pathogens that cause diarrhea and analyzed about 18,000 tests that were taken from January 2018 to December 2022. 

    The motivation for the research was the change in the rate of positives for certain pathogens during the COVID-19 pandemic, said Banaei. “It immediately became clear that the pandemic lockdown and shelter-in-place had created a natural experiment to investigate the transmission dynamics of pathogens causing gastroenteritis.” 

    The research offers a unique window into the biology of gastrointestinal pathogens, raising some new research questions, said Banaei. “Why did some disappear while others persisted unaffected during lockdown? Why are some now surging to levels we haven’t seen before?” Improved understanding of these phenomena could lead to ways to interrupt pathogens’ spread, particularly in low- to middle-income countries where gastroenteritis remains a major cause of illness and death, especially among children. “It may also help us prepare for future unforeseen pandemics.”

    American Society for Microbiology (ASM)

    Source link

  • Bacteria in kitchen not as harmful as feared

    Bacteria in kitchen not as harmful as feared

    Newswise — Washington, D.C. – Bacteria found in 74 kitchens spread among 5 European countries were mostly harmless according to new research published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology. 

    “We have previously found considerable variations in kitchen standards, food preparation practices, and cleaning regimes between France, Norway, Portugal, Romania, and Hungary,” said Birgitte Moen, Ph.D., Scientist—Department of Food Safety and Quality, Nofima—Norwegian Institute of Food, Fisheries, and Aquaculture Research, Ås, Norway.

    In the study, the researchers sampled bacteria populations from sinks, cutting boards, counter tops, handles and cleaning utensils—sponges and cloths—used in kitchens. 

    Despite large numbers of species and considerable differences in bacterial diversity between samples, the researchers identified 8 bacterial genera commonly associated with environmental sources in most of the kitchens they sampled, which they characterized as “core microbiota.” These included Acinetobacter, Pseudomonas, Enhydrobacter, Enterobacteriaceae, Psychrobacter, Chryseobacterium, Bacillus and Staphylococcus. 

    In the report, the authors stressed that the core microbiota persisted despite considerable differences between kitchens in the study. Some kitchens lacked running water, some lacked an indoor sink and some lacked dishwashers. They also persisted despite differing food preparation methods, dietary habits and differences in hand and kitchen hygiene, both of which affect the probability of infection. 

    The study was motivated by the authors’ curiosity, said Moen. Bacteria in food, in the gut, in hospitals and in professional food production had been well researched, but little was known about the microbes that inhabit the domestic kitchen. With an already existing collaboration across countries, “we had a unique opportunity to dig into this,” Moen added.

    The team knew that harmful bacteria enter kitchens via contaminated food, and that the type of these bacteria varied across countries. For example, Salmonella is not a problem in Norway, but it is the most commonly reported cause of foodborne illness in mainland Europe. Knowledge of the bacteria inhabiting the domestic kitchen could be used to help prevent human illness, and perhaps could even lead to more hygienic kitchen designs and better cleaning utensils, said Moen.

    ###

    American Society for Microbiology (ASM)

    Source link

  • Oral probiotic offers potential treatment for dry eye disease

    Oral probiotic offers potential treatment for dry eye disease

    Newswise — Houston, TX –  In a study by a research group at Baylor College of Medicine, oral administration of a commercially available probiotic bacterial strain was found to improve dry eye disease in an animal model. The findings were presented at ASM Microbe 2023, the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology.

    Dry eye, a common condition in which tears produced by the eye can’t keep the eye adequately lubricated, afflicts approximately 1 in 20 people in the United States. It can cause eye stinging and burning, inflammation, blurry vision and light sensitivity. Extreme cases can result in damage to the eye’s surface if left untreated. The most common treatments involve the application of eye drops, gels or ointment. This new, unconventional treatment involves bacteria in the intestinal tract.

    Presenting author Laura Schaefer, Ph.D., of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, said, “The ‘friendly’ bacteria that live in the human gastrointestinal tract have been linked to health and protection against disease in many parts of the body, including the gut, brain and lung. It’s therefore not surprising that the gut microbiome also has effects on our eyes.”

    Previous work by this research group showed that mice given gut bacteria from human Sjögren syndrome patients with severe dry eye developed worse eye disease under dry conditions than mice that were given gut bacteria from healthy human patients. This suggests that the gut bacteria from healthy people help to protect the surface of the eye in dry conditions. One possible treatment avenue for dry eye would involve probiotic bacteria that have similar protective effects. The group investigated this by using an orally administered probiotic bacterial strain, Limosilactobacillus reuteri DSM17938, in a dry eye mouse model. DSM17938 is a human-derived, commercially available probiotic bacterial strain that has already demonstrated protective effects in the gut and immune system in humans and mice, but it has not been tested in the context of eye health.

    Mice were first treated with antibiotics, which kills many of the “friendly” bacteria living in the gut. They were then exposed to very dry conditions and fed daily doses of either probiotic bacteria or a saline solution as a control. After 5 days, the eyes were examined for disease. The mice that were fed the probiotic bacteria had healthier and more intact corneal surfaces. In addition, these mice had more goblet cells in their eye tissue, which are specialized cells that produce mucin, an essential component in tears. Taken together these data suggest that the right oral probiotic could help treat and manage dry eye symptoms.

    The authors in this study are Laura Schaefer, Robert Britton, Steven Pflugfelder and Cintia de Paiva. The research was performed in the laboratory of Dr. Cintia de Paiva in the Department of Ophthalmology at Baylor College of Medicine and supported with funds from the National Institutes of Health and the Research to Prevent Blindness Foundation.
     

    ###

    American Society for Microbiology (ASM)

    Source link