Sunday, August 31, 2025
Science
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • SCIENCE NEWS
  • CONTACT US
  • HOME
  • SCIENCE NEWS
  • CONTACT US
No Result
View All Result
Scienmag
No Result
View All Result
Home Science News Medicine

Antibiotic Effectively Battles Lyme Disease

April 23, 2025
in Medicine
Reading Time: 5 mins read
0
67
SHARES
609
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
ADVERTISEMENT
  • Current ‘gold standard’ treatment does not work for up to 20% of population and kills beneficial bacteria
  • Scientists screened nearly 500 FDA-approved compounds to assess effectiveness against Lyme
  • Piperacillin effectively treats Lyme disease at 100-times lower dose than doxycycline

CHICAGO — Lyme disease, a disease transmitted when deer ticks feed on infected animals like deer and rodents, and then bite humans, impacts nearly half a million individuals in the U.S. annually. Even in acute cases, Lyme can be devastating; but early treatment with antibiotics can prevent chronic symptoms like heart and neurological problems and arthritis from developing. 

Scientists from Northwestern University have identified that piperacillin, an antibiotic in the same class as penicillin, effectively cured mice of Lyme disease at 100-times less than the effective dose of doxycycline, the current gold standard treatment. At such a low dose, piperacillin also had the added benefit of “having virtually no impact on resident gut microbes,” according to the study, which will be published April 23 in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

Doxycycline and other generic antibiotics, on the other hand, wreak havoc on the microbiome, killing beneficial bacteria in the gut and causing troubling side effects even as it kills the borrelia bacteria that causes Lyme. In addition to its negative impact on the gut, doxycycline also fails to help between 10 and 20% of individuals who take it, and it is not approved for use in young children — who are at the highest risk of tick bites, and therefore, of developing Lyme.

More effective, or at least more specified, treatment options are needed as climate change extends tick seasons and Lyme becomes more prevalent.

“Powerful, broad-spectrum antibiotics that kill extracellular bacteria are seen as the most effective medication because physicians want to just kill the bacterium and don’t care how,” said Brandon L. Jutras, who led the research. “This is certainly a reasonable approach, but I think the future for Lyme disease patients is bright in that we are approaching an era of customized medicine, and we can potentially create a particular drug, or a combination to treat Lyme disease when other fail. The more we understand about the various strains and species of Lyme disease-causing Borrelia, the closer we get to a custom approach.”

Jutras is an associate professor in the microbiology-immunology department of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, and a member of Northwestern’s Center for Human Immunobiology. Jutras’s lab was recently named a Phase 3 winner in LymeX Diagnostics, the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation’s $10 million competition to accelerate the development of Lyme disease diagnostics, and in 2021 he won the Bay Area Lyme Foundation Emerging Leader Award.

The authors argue that piperacillin, which has already been FDA-approved as a safe treatment for pneumonia, could also be a candidate for preemptive interventions, in which someone potentially exposed to Lyme (with a known deer tick bite) would receive a single-dose shot of the medication.

To reach the conclusion that the penicillin relative would be the most effective and targeted treatment, the team screened nearly 500 medicines in a drug library, using a molecular framework to understand potential interactions between antibiotics and the Borrelia bacteria. Once the group had a short list of potentials, they performed additional physiological, cellular and molecular tests to identify compounds that did not impact other bacteria.

They found that piperacillin exclusively interfered with the unusual cell wall synthesis pattern common to Lyme bacteria, preventing the bacteria from growing or dividing and ultimately leading to its death.

Historically, piperacillin has been administered as part of a two-drug cocktail to treat severe strep infections because strep can break down beta-lactams (piperacillin’s class of antibiotics) unless accompanied by tazobactam, which is an inhibitor of the enzyme that inactivates piperacillin. Jutras wondered if using the same two medications, rather than piperacillin alone, would be a more effective bacteria killer.

“Bacteria are clever,” Jutras said. “Strep and some other bacteria combat antibiotics by secreting beta-lactamases that inactivate piperacillin. We found the approach is totally irrelevant in the context of Lyme disease and another way that makes piperacillin more specific. Adding the beta-lactamase inhibitor doesn’t improve the therapy because Lyme Borrelia don’t produce beta-lactamase, but the cocktail does negatively impact the microbiome by becoming more broadly functional against beneficial residents.”

Lyme prevention remains a challenge — no approved human vaccine exists — and Jutras hopes his research moving forward will help with developing proactive strategies to diagnose and treat it.

The study was supported by the Bay Area Lyme Foundation and United States Department of Agriculture (VA-160113), the Dennis Dean Research Grant (Virginia Tech), the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Disease (R01AI173256, R01AI178711), the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation and the Global Lyme Alliance.



Journal

Science Translational Medicine

Media Contact

Win Reynolds

Northwestern University

lila.reynolds@northwestern.edu

Journal
Science Translational Medicine

Journal

Science Translational Medicine

Keywords


  • /Health and medicine/Diseases and disorders/Infectious diseases/Microbial infections/Bacterial infections/Lyme disease

  • /Life sciences/Organismal biology/Animals/Invertebrates/Arthropods/Arachnids/Ticks

  • /Health and medicine/Clinical medicine/Translational medicine

  • /Health and medicine/Clinical medicine/Medical treatments/Drug therapy/Medications/Antibiotics

bu içeriği en az 2000 kelime olacak şekilde ve alt başlıklar ve madde içermiyecek şekilde ünlü bir science magazine için İngilizce olarak yeniden yaz. Teknik açıklamalar içersin ve viral olacak şekilde İngilizce yaz. Haber dışında başka bir şey içermesin. Haber içerisinde en az 12 paragraf ve her bir paragrafta da en az 50 kelime olsun. Cevapta sadece haber olsun. Ayrıca haberi yazdıktan sonra içerikten yararlanarak aşağıdaki başlıkların bilgisi var ise haberin altında doldur. Eğer yoksa bilgisi ilgili kısmı yazma.:
Subject of Research:
Article Title:
News Publication Date:
Web References:
References:
Image Credits:

Keywords

Tags: antibiotic dosage comparisonantibiotic impact on microbiomechronic Lyme disease preventiondeer tick infectionsdoxycycline alternativesFDA-approved compounds screeninggut bacteria preservationLyme disease transmissionLyme disease treatmentNorthwestern University researchpiperacillin effectivenessresident gut microbes
Share27Tweet17
Previous Post

Study Suggests Guns in Social Environments May Influence School Shooters’ Upbringing

Next Post

Scientists Discover Unexpected Traction Ability in Sculpins

Related Posts

blank
Medicine

Pediatric Oncology Access in Urmia: Survey Insights

August 31, 2025
blank
Medicine

Peer Networks Enhance Self-Regulated Learning in Biomedical Engineering

August 31, 2025
blank
Medicine

Advanced Detection of Upper Limb Motor Intentions

August 31, 2025
blank
Medicine

Neutrophils Aid Extracellular Matrix Repair Against Pathogens

August 31, 2025
blank
Medicine

Nursing Students Evaluate Clinical Simulation for Medication Safety

August 31, 2025
blank
Medicine

Portable Bioprinters: Innovations in Dental Bioprinting

August 31, 2025
Next Post
Features uncovered on fins of sculpins

Scientists Discover Unexpected Traction Ability in Sculpins

  • Mothers who receive childcare support from maternal grandparents show more parental warmth, finds NTU Singapore study

    Mothers who receive childcare support from maternal grandparents show more parental warmth, finds NTU Singapore study

    27542 shares
    Share 11014 Tweet 6884
  • University of Seville Breaks 120-Year-Old Mystery, Revises a Key Einstein Concept

    956 shares
    Share 382 Tweet 239
  • Bee body mass, pathogens and local climate influence heat tolerance

    642 shares
    Share 257 Tweet 161
  • Researchers record first-ever images and data of a shark experiencing a boat strike

    509 shares
    Share 204 Tweet 127
  • Warm seawater speeding up melting of ‘Doomsday Glacier,’ scientists warn

    313 shares
    Share 125 Tweet 78
Science

Embark on a thrilling journey of discovery with Scienmag.com—your ultimate source for cutting-edge breakthroughs. Immerse yourself in a world where curiosity knows no limits and tomorrow’s possibilities become today’s reality!

RECENT NEWS

  • Pediatric Oncology Access in Urmia: Survey Insights
  • Christian Nationalism: Spirituality’s Intricate Interplay Explored
  • Peer Networks Enhance Self-Regulated Learning in Biomedical Engineering
  • Advanced Detection of Upper Limb Motor Intentions

Categories

  • Agriculture
  • Anthropology
  • Archaeology
  • Athmospheric
  • Biology
  • Blog
  • Bussines
  • Cancer
  • Chemistry
  • Climate
  • Earth Science
  • Marine
  • Mathematics
  • Medicine
  • Pediatry
  • Policy
  • Psychology & Psychiatry
  • Science Education
  • Social Science
  • Space
  • Technology and Engineering

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 5,182 other subscribers

© 2025 Scienmag - Science Magazine

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • HOME
  • SCIENCE NEWS
  • CONTACT US

© 2025 Scienmag - Science Magazine

Discover more from Science

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading