Alligator Blood May Put The Bite On Antibiotic-resistant Infections

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Alligator Blood May Put The Bite On Antibiotic-resistant Infections

ScienceDaily (Apr. 7, 2008) —

Despite their reputation for deadly attacks on humans and pets, alligators are

wiggling their way toward a new role as potential lifesavers in medicine,

biochemists in Louisiana reported at the 235th national meeting of the American

Chemical Society. They described how proteins in gator blood may provide a

source of powerful new antibiotics to help fight infections associated with

diabetic ulcers, severe burns, and " superbugs " that are resistant to

conventional medication. Their study, described as the first to explore the

antimicrobial activity of alligator blood in detail, found a range of other

promising uses for the gator's antibiotic proteins. Among them: combating

Candida albicans yeast infections, which are a serious problem in AIDS patients

and transplant recipients, who have weakened immune systems, the scientists say.

" We're very excited about the potential of these alligator blood proteins as

both antibacterial and antifungal agents, " says study co-author Mark Merchant,

Ph.D., a biochemist at McNeese State University in Lake , La. " There's a

real possibility that you could be treated with an alligator blood product one

day. " Previous studies by Merchant showed that alligators have an unusually

strong immune system that is very different from that of humans. Unlike people,

alligators can fight microorganisms such as fungi, viruses, and bacteria without

having prior exposure to them. Scientists believe that this is an evolutionary

adaptation to promote quick wound healing, as alligators are often injured

during fierce territorial battles. In collaboration with Kermit Murray and

Lancia Darville, both of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Merchant and

colleagues collected blood samples from American alligators. They then isolated

disease-fighting white blood cells (leucocytes) and extracted the active

proteins from those cells. In laboratory tests, tiny amounts of these protein

extracts killed a wide range of bacteria, including MRSA (methicillin-resistant

Staphylococcus aureus), the deadly bacteria that are moving out of health care

settings and into the community. These " superbugs " are increasingly resistant to

multiple antibiotics and cause thousands of deaths each year. The proteins also

killed six out of eight different strains of Candida albicans, the researchers

say. Their previous research also suggests that blood proteins may help fight

HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The scientists are working to identify the

exact chemical structures of the antimicrobial proteins and determine which

proteins are most effective at killing different microbes. The gator blood

extract may contain at least four promising substances, they estimate. With the

chemical structures in hand, scientists can begin developing them into

antibacterial or antifungal drugs, including pills and creams, for fighting

infections. These drugs show particular promise as topical ointments, Merchant

says. Gator-blood creams could conceivably be rubbed onto the foot ulcers of

patients with diabetes to help prevent the type of uncontrolled infections that

lead to amputations, he says. The creams could also be applied to the skin of

burn patients to keep infections at bay until damaged skin can heal, the

researcher adds. Merchant suggests that the proteins might be called

" alligacin. " If studies continue to show promise, the drugs could land on

pharmacy shelves in another seven to ten years, he estimates. Until then, don't

try to create your own home-remedies using alligator blood, as raw, unprocessed

blood could make you sick or even kill you if injected, the researcher cautions.

Similar antimicrobial substances might also be found in related animals such as

crocodiles, Merchant notes. In the future, he plans to study blood samples from

alligators and crocodile species throughout the world to test their

disease-fighting potential. The state of Louisiana and the National Science

Foundation provides funding for this research.

Adapted from materials provided by American Chemical Society, via EurekAlert!, a

service of AAAS.

Alligator blood antibiotics

POSTED BY Pescovitz, APRIL 16, 2008 8:23 AM | PERMALINK

Researchers are studying American alligator blood as a potential source for

powerful new antibiotics. Apparently, proteins in the blood can kill E. coli,

herpes simplex, and the nasty methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

Apparently, many reptiles and amphibians have some of these powerful proteins

flowing through their blood. From Science News: Many of these critters live in

" sort of nasty places " that are polluted, and gators probably eat all kinds of

sick animals, comments Klein, a reptile infectious disease specialist at

the University of Florida College of Medicine in Gainesville. Fierce battles

with prey and other gators can leave gaping flesh wounds—but the animals are

fairly hardy. These peptides provide a first line of defense—important in the

lower vertebrates, who have a slower antibody response than humans, says Klein.

" It seems Mother Nature has built in a circulating system of antimicrobial

factories that protect the animals while they are waiting to develop the

cell-mediated response that we would develop quickly, " he say

Alligators' 'ferocious' immune system could lead to new medicines for people

By Fleshler South Florida Sun-Sentinel August 14, 2006

The alligator's massive jaws and powerful tail mark it as a relic of the

dinosaur age, a primitive creature that would appear to have little in common

with humans. Yet scientists are studying aspects of alligator biology that could

lead to new medical treatments and a better understanding of threats to the

environment.

In the bayous of Louisiana, researchers have discovered that alligators have a

ferocious immune system that can take down a vast range of viruses, bacteria and

other infectious microbes, including HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

And in the lakes and marshes of Florida, they have found that the reptiles are

extraordinarily sensitive to pesticides, fertilizers and other pollutants,

making them a useful early-warning system of possible hazards to people.

Because of the alligator's potential value to human health, scientists have

proposed adding it to the short list of animals whose genes will be sequenced.

" We know so little about the alligator, " said Zasloff, dean of research

and translational science at town University Medical Center and an expert

on animals' immune systems. " This is an animal that after injury in its swamp,

heals. So they can and they should be studied much more extensively to know how

a vertebrate in water can experience such severe, terrible injury and recover. "

Like the giraffe's neck and the hawk's eyesight, the alligator's immune system

is an adaptation to its environment and behavior. Alligators engage in brutal

territorial fights in swamps that teem with bacteria and other microbes. After

the thrashing stops and the wounded combatants separate, those with the

strongest capacity to resist infection tend to survive and can therefore produce

offspring.

Mark Merchant, associate professor of biochemistry at McNeese State University

in Lake , La., first wondered about the alligator's resistance to disease

as a youth, hunting and fishing in the bayous of southeast Texas. So many

alligators were missing legs or had deep scars across the belly. Why did they

otherwise seem so healthy?

As a scientist, Merchant headed back to the swamps. He snared alligators, drew

their blood and returned them to the water. At the lab, Merchant and his team

found that alligator blood serum killed all 16 strains of bacteria exposed to

it, while human blood serum killed only six. Among the eradicated bacteria were

E. coli and strains that cause dysentery, salmonella, and strep and staph

infections. Alligator blood also killed the herpes simplex virus and a strain of

HIV.

" Their immune system is very, very broad acting, " said Merchant, who has

published several papers on the subject. " It takes down practically everything.

It kills all types of bacteria, many types of fungi and viruses. So it's of

great interest to us. "

As a growing number of microbes develop resistance to antibiotics, scientists

are searching the animal and plant worlds for sources of new drugs. But it's

difficult to translate resistance to disease in animals to resistance in people.

You can't, for example, cure AIDS merely by injecting alligator blood into a

patient.

As a first step, Merchant and other scientists have begun studying the proteins

at the heart of the alligator's powerful immune system. They're short chains of

amino acids, called peptides, which attack invading microbes.

Zasloff, the town immune system expert, said several drugs derived from

animal peptides are in development, although none has received government

approval for use in humans.

Zasloff said that while peptides from alligators and other animals can kill

germs in laboratory experiments, they could be toxic in people or they could

fail to function without the specific white cells that deploy them in the

original animal's body.

" In the test tube, there's no problem, " he said. " But in the body we have to

worry about whether the anti-microbial peptides will go where they have to go

and kill what they have to kill. "

The alligator's potential benefit to human health has led scientists to propose

sequencing its genome, the long chains of nucleic acids that make up its DNA.

The National Institutes of Health's National Human Genome Research Institute has

paid for the sequencing of several species that have some bearing on human

health or basic biology, such as the fruit fly, Norwegian rat and the mosquito

that transmits malaria.

Glenn, a biologist at the University of Georgia who is coordinating

efforts to sequence the alligator genome, said the National Institutes of Health

turned down a proposal last year but appeared inclined to approve it this year

or next.

Despite their stout resistance to what nature dishes out, alligators have turned

out to be vulnerable to man-made chemicals. In the lakes and marshes of Florida,

biologist Lou Guillette in 1994 found some of the first evidence of chemicals

that may be disrupting the reproductive systems of animals and humans.

In Lake Apopka, site of a pesticide spill in 1980, he found male alligators with

underdeveloped genitals and female alligators unable to produce healthy eggs. As

he expanded his research, he found the same problems among alligators in lakes

and marshes that hadn't experienced such a catastrophe, including Lake

Okeechobee and the Everglades of western Broward County.

Guillette's work was an early indication of the vast range of pesticides,

fertilizers and other chemicals that could obstruct the functioning of hormones.

Known as endocrine disruptors, these chemicals interfere with the body's

production of the hormones that regulate growth, behavior and the development of

sex organs.

These problems were most widespread in lakes and marshes near farms, where

pesticides and fertilizers would wash into the alligators' habitat. Guillette,

distinguished professor of zoology at the University of Florida, and teams of

graduate students have spent years exploring polluted and clean lakes to draw

blood samples, examine alligators and collect their eggs. They exposed the eggs

to minute amounts of pesticides, fertilizers and other chemicals and found that

these substances led to imbalances in estrogen, testosterone and other hormones.

Meanwhile, physicians were recording troubling trends in humans. Using data from

the past few decades, they found an increase in testicular cancer, low sperm

counts, malformed penises and premature female puberty. Many scientists think

the common cause lies in the huge number of chemicals that came into daily life

in the last few generations.

" Some of Lou's [Guillette's] early work was really key in bringing attention to

this issue, " said Elaine Francis, national director of pesticides and toxics

research for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. " He has consistently

demonstrated that this is an ongoing issue that needs to be dealt with. "

The EPA plans to screen thousands of pesticides and other chemicals for their

ability to disrupt the endocrine systems of people and wildlife. But scientists

say it's impossible to pin problems on any single chemical.

" If we can actually show there are problems in these wildlife populations, it

raises a flag for our own health, " Guillette said. " It doesn't mean that

everything we find in wildlife we're going to find in humans, but we have to

look at that. If we're finding there are abnormalities in wildlife, we need to

address those issues and how we are in fact dealing with the ecosystem and the

world around us. "

Fleshler can be reached at dfleshler@... or 954-356-4535.

, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Crocodile blood shows anti-HIV activity

Reuters August 16, 2005

SCIENTISTS in Australia's tropical north are collecting blood from crocodiles in

the hope of developing a powerful antibiotic for humans, after tests showed that

the reptile's immune system kills the HIV virus.

The crocodile's immune system is much more powerful than that of humans,

preventing life-threatening infections after savage territorial fights which

often leave the animals with gaping wounds and missing limbs.

" They tear limbs off each other and despite the fact that they live in this

environment with all these microbes, they heal up very rapidly and normally

almost always without infection, " said US scientist Mark Merchant, who has been

taking crocodile blood samples in the Northern Territory.

Initial studies of the crocodile immune system in 1998 found that several

proteins (antibodies) in the reptile's blood killed bacteria that were resistant

to penicillin, such as Staphylococcus aureus or golden staph, Australian

scientist Adam Britton said. It was also a more powerful killer of the HIV virus

than the human immune system.

" If you take a test tube of HIV and add crocodile serum, it will have a greater

effect than human serum. It can kill a much greater number of HIV viral

organisms, " Dr Britton said from Darwin's Crocodylus Park, a tourism park and

research center.

Dr Britton said the crocodile immune system worked differently from the human

system by directly attacking bacteria as soon as an infection occurred in the

body.

" The crocodile has an immune system which attaches to bacteria and tears it

apart and it explodes. It's like putting a gun to the head of the bacteria and

pulling the trigger, " he said.

For the past 10 days Dr Britton and Dr Merchant have been carefully collecting

blood from wild and captive crocodiles, both saltwater and freshwater species.

After capturing a crocodile and strapping its powerful jaws closed, the

scientists extract blood from a large vein behind the head.

" It's called a sinus, right behind the head, and it's very easy just to put a

needle in the back of the neck and hit this sinus and then you can take a large

volume of blood very simply, " said Dr Britton.

The scientists hope to collect enough crocodile blood to isolate the powerful

antibodies and eventually develop an antibiotic for use by humans.

" We may be able to have antibiotics that you take orally, potentially also

antibiotics that you could run topically on wounds, say diabetic ulcer wounds;

burn patients often have their skin infected and things like that, " said Dr

Merchant.

However, the crocodile's immune system may be too powerful for humans and may

need to be synthesized for human consumption.

" There is a lot of work to be done. It may take years before we can get to the

stage where we have something to market, " said Dr Britton.

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