Bacteria: Your Best Friend or Worst Enemy?

If you think about it, there are super tiny organisms floating around you right now. Some call your skin their home. But don’t worry! The ones on your skin are pretty friendly. These microorganisms, specifically bacteria, actually protect our skin by digesting oily substances, or sebum. When sebum is broken down into fatty acids by bacteria, the fatty acids produce an acidic environment that can actually prevent the growth of harmful microbes on the skin’s surface. Similarly, some skin bacteria can produce antimicrobial peptides, small proteins that act against harmful pathogens. Although our little neighbors can be incredibly helpful to us, you can’t be too careful. 

If you happen to hurt yourself, your skin’s bacteria can quickly enter the wound. Because skin bacteria don’t belong inside our tissues, their presence triggers an immune response causing redness, pain, or swelling. These are typical signs of an infection. Isn’t it interesting how the same bacteria that reinforce your skin’s protective barrier, can harm you as soon as there’s an opening for them to breach the skin’s defenses? The microbes on your skin are there for a reason. But as soon as they come in contact with an environment they are not familiar with, chances are they will cause an infection. 

Unfortunately, this isn’t the only way someone can get a bacterial infection. We have to consider the bacteria all around us and how they can enter our bodies. We’ve already covered the bacteria that can enter through skin breaks, but what about those that can be inhaled? Airborne bacteria can enter our lungs and cause respiratory infections like pneumonia when you’re in close contact with an infected person. Then, we have foodborne bacteria that can enter your body upon consuming something that’s been contaminated. These kinds of infections can lead to gastrointestinal issues, such as nausea, vomiting, or abdominal pain. Next, we have insect vectors, like mosquitoes, fleas, and ticks, which can transmit bacteria when they bite you. There are many more ways, but you get the gist. 

The good thing is that bacterial infections can be treated! Most of the time. It gets a little complicated from here. Most common bacterial infections can be treated effectively with topical or oral antibiotics. Given your symptoms and after running some tests, doctors can accurately prescribe an antibiotic that will specifically target the bacteria invading your body. Antibiotics can either eliminate the bacteria altogether or prevent them from multiplying, allowing your body to clean up the mess that’s left behind. But what if the antibiotic doesn’t work? The two biggest reasons, in my opinion, are not finishing the entire round of antibiotics as required and antibiotic resistance. The former can be easily addressed. Just make sure to take your antibiotics as prescribed by your doctor! Don’t miss a day or take two in one day because you forgot yesterday. The latter, however, is very serious and something that I want to study in the future. 

Antibiotic resistance is caused by the overuse and misuse of antibiotic treatments. It allows bacteria to evolve or mutate and resist the effects of antibiotics that typically harm them. Certain bacteria can protect themselves from antibiotics in different ways. Some can change the structure of the antibiotic itself, making it useless. Others can push the antibiotic out of their cells, or even change their outer structure so the antibiotic can't bind to them. These tricks allow some bacteria to survive the antibiotic and become resistant to it, passing this resistance on as they multiply (Habboush & Guzman, 2023). 

As of now, the best way to potentially minimize antibiotic resistance is by showing people how to properly take antibiotics. However, a specific bacterial strain, Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), is resistant to multiple antibiotics that were once used to treat it. This kind of antibiotic resistance is hard to address simply with stewardship. It’s something that should be studied to hopefully find a permanent solution. 

The main reason MRSA is resistant to certain antibiotics, such as beta-lactams like penicillin, is because of a gene called mecA. This gene produces a protein called PB2a, which is a type of enzyme that makes it harder for antibiotics to attach to MRSA and do their job. As a result, the antibiotics can’t stop MRSA from growing and spreading (Siddiqui, 2023). 

Personally, I’d explore several strategies to fight MRSA. One approach would be to discover new substances that target MRSA differently from current antibiotics like penicillin. This could involve testing natural products and synthetic chemicals. Another method would focus on blocking the enzyme PB2a that makes MRSA resistant. By creating molecules that stop this enzyme, it could make MRSA respond to previously-resisted antibiotics once again. 

It's crucial to keep pushing for new solutions against antibiotic resistance, but there's an interesting concern about the future of groundbreaking discoveries. John Horgan, in The End of Science, argues that we might be nearing a point where science isn’t producing as many revolutionary breakthroughs. A study of 45 million research papers echoes this concern, showing a decline in “disruptive” science (Horgan, 2023). This idea only proves the urgency of addressing antibiotic resistance while we still can. 

Antibiotic resistance isn’t just a medical challenge — it’s a race against time. If we don't do something about it now, tomorrow's simple infections could become untreatable! I’m only exaggerating (Not really). Bacteria can change themselves in their favor and we don’t know when they could spontaneously mutate. That’s why the future of medicine depends on our ability to outsmart bacteria before they outsmart us. 

Resources:

Habboush, Y., & Guzman, N. (2023). Antibiotic Resistance. National Library of Medicine. https://doi.org/10.3390/books978-3-0365-6031-1 

Horgan, J. (2024, April 18). Huge study confirms science ending! (sort of). John Horgan (The Science Writer). https://johnhorgan.org/cross-check/yrb9e7uefpeqrlkiasoc6octxtnm5g 

Siddiqui, A. H. (2023, April 2). Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. StatPearls [Internet]. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK482221/ 

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