Antibiotic substitute in Aquaculture

Kurzfassung

A Spanish university has developed a method for using marine bacterial cells to control infectious diseases and to prevent biofilms formation in the aquaculture sector. The method tackles with the problem of an increasing pathogens resistance to antibiotics and therefore is a good alternative to their use. The university is looking for a licence agreement.

Details

The virulence of a lot of pathogenic bacteria depends on the secretion of little signal molecules to the environment. The mechanism that allows the coordination of their attacks has been named "quorum sensing"(QS). The most studied QS signals are the "N-acil-homoserin lactonas"(AHLs). The interception of that signals avoids that the pathogens produce virulence factors and the formation of biofilms and facilitates the immune system to fight against the infection. This interception mechanism known as "quorum quenching" (QQ) is a good alternative to the use of antibiotics for the control of bacterial infectious diseases.
The university has selected the 20J strain, "Tenacibaculum discolor", from 200 bacterial strains achieved from seawater samples because of the high degradating capacity and the wide range specificity of its enzymes against all the tested AHLs, also AHLs with lateral chains of a wide spectrum of sizes, making it a good candidate to control QS pathogen based on AHL in human health, aquaculture, animals and plants.

Innovative Aspects:
New and promising method to control bacterial infectious diseases.

In combination with antibiotics is an interesting strategy for the treatment of infectious diseases caused by multiresistance pathogens like Pseudomonas aeruginosa.