Medieval medicine remedy could provide new treatment for modern day
infections

Date:
July 28, 2020
Source:
University of Warwick
Summary:
Antibiotic resistance is an increasing battle for scientists to
overcome, as more antimicrobials are urgently needed to treat
biofilm-associated infections. However scientists say research
into natural antimicrobials could provide candidates to fill the
antibiotic discovery gap.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Antibiotic resistance is an increasing battle for scientists to overcome,
as more antimicrobials are urgently needed to treat biofilm-associated infections.

However scientists from the School of Life Sciences at the University of Warwick say research into natural antimicrobials could provide candidates
to fill the antibiotic discovery gap.


========================================================================== Bacteria can live in two ways, as individual planktonic cells or as a multicellular biofilm. Biofilm helps protect bacteria from antibiotics,
making them much harder to treat, one such biofilm that is particularly
hard to treat is those that infect diabetic foot ulcers.

Researchers at the University of Warwick, Dr Freya Harrison, Jessica
Furner- Pardoe, and Dr Blessing Anonye, have looked at natural remedies
for the gap in the antibiotic market, and in the paper, 'Anti-biofilm
efficacy of a medieval treatment for bacterial infection requires the combination of multiple ingredients' published in the journal Scientific Reports today the 28 July, researchers say medieval methods using natural antimicrobials from every day ingredients could help find new answers.

The Ancientbiotics research team was established in 2015 and is an interdisciplinary group of researchers including microbiologists,
chemists, pharmacists, data analysts and medievalists at Warwick,
Nottingham and in the United States.

Building on previous research done by the University of Nottingham on
using medieval remedies to treat MRSA, the researchers from the School
of Life Sciences at University of Warwick reconstructed a 1,000-year-old medieval remedy containing onion, garlic, wine, and bile salts, which is
known as 'Bald's eyesalve', and showed it to have promising antibacterial activity. The team also showed that the mixture caused low levels of
damage to human cells.

They found the Bald's eyesalve remedy was effective against a range
of Gram- negative and Gram-positive wound pathogens in planktonic
culture. This activity is maintained against the following pathogens
grown as biofilms:
* 1. Acinetobacter baumanii- commonly associated with infected
wounds in
combat troops returning from conflict zones.

2. Stenotrophomonas maltophilia- commonly associated with
respiratory infections in humans


=========================================================================
3. Staphylococcus aureus- a common cause of skin infections
including abscesses, respiratory infections such as sinusitis,
and food poisoning.

4. Staphylococcus epidermidis- a common cause of infections
involving indwelling foreign devices such as a catheter, surgical
wound infections, and bacteremia in immunocompromised patients.

5. Streptococcus pyogenes -- causes numerous infections in humans
including pharyngitis, tonsillitis, scarlet fever, cellulitis,
rheumatic fever and post-streptococcal glomerulonephritis.

All of these bacteria can be found in the biofilms that infect diabetic
foot ulcers and which can be resistant to antibiotic treatment. These debilitating infections can lead to amputation to avoid the risk of the bacteria spreading to the blood to cause lethal bacteremia.

The Bald's eyesalve mixtures use of garlic, which contains allicin, can
explain activity against planktonic cultures, however garlic alone has
no activity against biofilms, and therefore the anti-biofilm activity of
Bald's eyesalve cannot be attributed to a single ingredient and requires
the combination of all ingredients to achieve full activity.



==========================================================================
Dr Freya Harrison, from the School of Life Sciences at the University of Warwick comments: "We have shown that a medieval remedy made from onion, garlic, wine, and bile can kill a range of problematic bacteria grown
both planktonically and as biofilms. Because the mixture did not cause
much damage to human cells in the lab, or to mice, we could potentially
develop a safe and effective antibacterial treatment from the remedy.

"Most antibiotics that we use today are derived from natural compounds,
but our work highlights the need to explore not only single compounds
but mixtures of natural products for treating biofilm infections. We
think that future discovery of antibiotics from natural products could
be enhanced by studying combinations of ingredients, rather than single
plants or compounds. In this first instance, we think this combination
could suggest new treatments for infected wounds, such as diabetic
foot and leg ulcers. " Jessica Furner-Pardoe, from the Medical School
at the University of Warwick comments: "Our work demonstrates just how important it is to use realistic models in the lab when looking for new antibiotics from plants. Although a single component is enough to kill planktonic cultures, it fails against more realistic infection models,
where the full remedy succeeds." In previous research Christina
Lee, from the School of English at the University of Nottingham,
had examined the Bald's Leechbook, an Old English leatherbound volume
in the British Library, to see if it really works as an antibacterial
remedy. The Leechbook is widely thought of as one of the earliest known
medical textbooks and contains Anglo-Saxon medical advice and recipes
for medicines, salves and treatments. Christina adds: "Bald's eyesalve underlines the significance of medical treatment throughout the ages. It
shows that people in Early Medieval England had at least some effective remedies. The collaboration which has informed this project shows the importance of the arts in interdisciplinary research."

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_Warwick. Note: Content
may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Jessica Furner-Pardoe, Blessing O. Anonye, Ricky Cain, John Moat,
Catherine A. Ortori, Christina Lee, David A. Barrett, Christophe
Corre, Freya Harrison. Anti-biofilm efficacy of a medieval
treatment for bacterial infection requires the combination of
multiple ingredients.

Scientific Reports, 2020; 10 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-69273-8 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200728113545.htm

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