Sweet Victory Against Pathogens

Multidrug resistance is a growing problem across the globe, with strains of bacteria becoming more and more desensitized to the common antibiotics every day. This means if you were to end up with some sort of bacterial infection; be it in a cut, in the lungs like pneumonia, or in the stomach, current antibiotics are less likely to result in this infection being cleared. This can cause long term damage and even death for even the healthiest of individuals!

Recently, researchers at London's Brunel University have found that saccharin, a compound found in many market artificial sweeteners, displays significant antibacterial effects. A 1.4% saccharin concentration was tested against both gram positive and gram negative bacteria strains, and under both conditions it was found that the growth of the bacteria colony in the presence of saccharin was lessened significantly.

Ai shows colony growth in bacteria with no treatment, while Aii shows the colony growth in 1.4% saccharin solution. The arrows points to bulges and where they have lysed.

How does this artificial sweetener do this? According to further testing by these researchers, they found bulge-mediated cell lysis was the key. This is a process in which the compound causes the bacteria cell to swell and eventually burst like some sort of pathogenic balloon. In addition to making the cells swell and burst, it also affected other aspects of the cell wall in these bacteria. The research team founds saccharin inhibited biofilm production, which is usually secreted on the cell walls of many bacteria. Biofilms are usually beneficial to bacterial colony growth and motility aspects, thus inhibiting their production makes the cells less able to move and respond to their environment.

This is a huge discovery because saccharin is already a substance deemed safe for human consumption, so saccharin-related bacteria treatments could be developed a lot faster than an altogether new compound, possibly providing relief to people living with multidrug-resistant infections. Though more work needs to be done in determining how the compound can be used, it provides a promising potential for a new solution!