Only pathogenic strains have been used in antibacterial activity studies so far. What if one wants to study the genes which are involved in the cell death and locate them. Is it okay to publish such research in a journal ?
can engineered strain be used to perform such studies?
Hi:
Clinicians depend heavily on information from the clinical microbiology laboratory for treatment of their seriously ill patients. The clinical importance of antimicrobial susceptibility test results requires that these tests be performed under optimal conditions and that laboratories have the capability to provide results for the newest antimicrobial agents.
Moreover, these tests cost heavy work, time, and money to achieved properly.
So, it is nonsense to perform AST for non-pathogenic bacteria since the results obtained will be almost useless.
Mr. Lunagaria,
Though you will not find many articles wherein non-pathogenic strains of bacterial species are used to determine the efficacy of antimicrobials, there is nothing preventing this. For example, we are beginning one trial to determine the efficacy of antimicrobial agents in hydroponic nutrient solutions. Non-virulent E. coli will be used, and the effect of the antimicrobials on the bacteria as well on the growth of salad greens will be evaluated. In this case, we are actually not allowed to use a virulent strain unless we observe bio-hazard protocols and procedures for which we do not have the facilities nor budget.
You will be able to publish in any related journal as long as you are honest and clear about what materials and procedures were used to obtain your results, and they will be presented in that specific context.
Best of luck!
Mr. Joseph R. Chidiac
Thank you for your advice on this trouble, It really helped me.
In my case, I am using E.Coli. top 10 strain, which is not a natural strain and engineered to use as competent cells.
I referred to publications, none of them have used engineered strains so far. if you have any ideas on that, just give it a shot and share with us here.
Actually there are thousands of papers using laboratory strains of E. coli studying antibacterial mechanisms and compounds. So it will work fine and you can certainly publish. When you get to the point of showing clinical relevancy then you may need to work with pathogenic strains.
One additional comment I would add is that Top 10 strain is a recA mutant strain, so deficient in DNA recombination and repair. Such mutant strains generally grow more slowly and are more sensitive to chemical or environmental insults than a RecA+ strain. So you might wish to consider using a different E. coli strain but it is not absolutely necessary. I just thought I would give you that warning.
I partially agree with Micheal. Actually we do have the luxury of using non-virulent or non pathogenic strains for accessing antibacterial activity. But, here in this case Top 10 is deficient for DNA recombination and it will definitely alter the ability of the bacteria to respond in the presence of compound. Moreover, if your compound happens to target any of the pathway involving DNA then there are high chances of getting false positive results.
So it will be better to work non-pathogenic or avirulent strains which are not mutant deficient.
I'd like to add here, researchers have used dh5alpha for checking antibacterial activities. dh5alpha is also derived strain used as competent cells. top 10 is also a derivative otherwise called dh10beta strain
Was dh5alpha used alone in the study or was it used in combination with some other strain,dh5alpha serving as the control strain? Is dh5alpha a eficient strain as well?
https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/bioassay/1129173#section=Top
Antibacterial activity data is available on the link mentioned above. I think the strain is not taken as control strain. And as we discussed before, mainly the material exposed for testing antimicrobial activity is an oxide compound. So it will damage cellular compounds and can even fragment DNA as well. However, there are no mutation studies performed before in such projects.
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