Following the mechanisms of bacteriostatic versus bactericidal action using raman spectroscopy

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Authors

BERNATOVÁ Silvie SAMEK Ota PILÁT Zdeněk ŠERÝ Mojmír JEŽEK Jan JÁKL Petr ŠILER Martin KRZYŽÁNEK Vladislav ZEMÁNEK Pavel HOLÁ Veronika DVOŘÁČKOVÁ Milada RŮŽIČKA Filip

Year of publication 2013
Type Article in Periodical
Magazine / Source Molecules
MU Faculty or unit

Faculty of Medicine

Citation
Doi http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/molecules181113188
Field Microbiology, virology
Keywords Antibiotics; Bacteria; Bactericidal; Bacteriostatic; Raman spectroscopy
Description Antibiotics cure infections by influencing bacterial growth or viability. Antibiotics can be divided to two groups on the basis of their effect on microbial cells through two main mechanisms, which are either bactericidal or bacteriostatic. Bactericidal antibiotics kill the bacteria and bacteriostatic antibiotics suppress the growth of bacteria (keep them in the stationary phase of growth). One of many factors to predict a favorable clinical outcome of the potential action of antimicrobial chemicals may be provided using in vitro bactericidal/bacteriostatic data (e.g., minimum inhibitory concentrations-MICs). Consequently, MICs are used in clinical situations mainly to confirm resistance, and to determine the in vitro activities of new antimicrobials. We report on the combination of data obtained from MICs with information on microorganisms' "fingerprint" (e.g., DNA/RNA, and proteins) provided by Raman spectroscopy. Thus, we could follow mechanisms of the bacteriostatic versus bactericidal action simply by detecting the Raman bands corresponding to DNA. The Raman spectra of Staphylococcus epidermidis treated with clindamycin (a bacteriostatic agent) indeed show little effect on DNA which is in contrast with the action of ciprofloxacin (a bactericidal agent), where the Raman spectra show a decrease in strength of the signal assigned to DNA, suggesting DNA fragmentation.
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