Staphylococcus aureus

What’s the News: Adding sugar to certain antibiotics can boost their bacteria-battling ability, according to a study published today in Nature. In particular, sugar helps the drugs wipe out persisters, bacteria that evade antibiotics by essentially going dormant only to flare up again once the danger has passed. This technique could lead to the development of inexpensive, more effective treatments for bacterial infections.

How the Heck:

The study looked at two common bacteria: E. coli, which can lead to urinary tract and gastrointestinal infections, and Staphylococcus aureus, the bugs that cause staph infections. Both can be treated with gentamicin, one of a larger group of antibiotics called aminoglycosides.
The researchers combined gentamicin with different kinds of sugars, including mannitol, fructose and glucose. (Sucrose, the stuff you put in your coffee, is just one of many types of sugars as far as biochemistry’s concerned.
When the scientists added these sweetened antibiotics to bacteria grown in Petri dishes, it killed over 99% of the bacterial persisters. The type of sugar seemed to make a difference, as well; only fructose helped the drug kill S. aureus, for instance.
The goal, said senior author James Collins, was essentially to ...