Antibiotic adjuvants: rejuvenating our current arsenal of antimicrobials against Group B Streptococcus

7/21/2021

Sabrina K. Spicer, BS, current PhD student

About presenter

Born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee, Sabrina completed her B.S. in Biochemistry at Middle Tennessee State University in 2019. As an undergraduate she investigated the utility of antimicrobial peptides against invasive fungal infections. After a brief period of working as a clinical research intern under the direction of Dr. Samuel Hunter (MD, Ph.D.) she decided to pursue her own Ph.D at Vanderbilt University with Dr. Steven Townsend and Dr. Jennifer Gaddy. In her free time, she enjoys hiking with her two dogs.

Group B Strep International

7/21/2021 10:02:07 pm

What an exceptional presentation on your intriguing study of antibiotic adjuvants as a way to help reduce antimicrobial resistance. Thank you for presenting for us at ICGBS 2021!

Roberta Creti

7/22/2021 02:59:10 am

Hi Sabrina,
congratulation for your very interesting presentation and great potential of your work to counteract GBS antibiotic resistance.
Are you planning to confirm the sinergistic effect of gentamycin plus beta-lactam? Even if both are antibiotics, it would very important to confirm this possible sinergism because it is the empirical therapy for neonatal sepsis and can help clinicians, in case of GBS invasive infection.
Secondly, the gentamicin MIC of your GBS test strains is very low, considering GBS is intrinsically resistant to gentamycin. Any plans to verify with other GBS strains?

Sabrina Spicer

7/22/2021 06:32:41 am

Hi Roberta!

Thank you for your kind feedback! I hadn't thought about synergy with beta-lactams, but that is definitely an interesting idea that we will look into!
As far as the MIC value for gentamicin you raise an interesting point! We have found that some strains, specifically GB2, are extremely susceptible to antibiotics and we have found our MIC values reproducible over multiple replicates.

Roberta Creti

7/22/2021 06:45:15 am

Consider that LIM broth is an enrichment media for GBS identification in antenatal screening of pregnant women, used to inoculate the vaginal rectal swab. It contains gentamycin 8 micrograms/ml. This means in your opinion that then we can miss some GBS because they possess a lower gentamycin MIC?

Sabrina Spicer

7/22/2021 08:53:04 am

I was under the impression that LIM broth was supplemented with colostin, not gentamicin, which would ensure that GBS is still present in the swab. That being said, it is my opinion that if it was supplemented with gentamicin there is a possibility that it would kill GBS present, especially if the GBS that is being swabbed is not gentamicin resistant.

Roberta Creti

7/22/2021 09:51:48 am

Yes, LIM broth is Todd-Hewitt broth supplemented with 10µg/mL colistin or 8µg/mL gentamicin and 15µg/mL nalidixic acid. So, if there is gentamicin instead of colistin, it can represent a problem for GBS identification, can't it?

Marti Perhach

7/22/2021 03:36:59 pm

When used as adjuvants, could household medications cause the side effects associated with their normal use such as drowsiness with claritin?

James Mcgregor mdcm

7/22/2021 09:23:09 pm

Thanks for your clear ,concise description of your fascinating studies. Could the development of Sulbactam/ ampicillin (Unycin) or trimethaprim/ sulfa ( Septra)be useful in explaining the potential power of your approaches? This is very exciting work! How about substances like vitamins ( folate etc)?

Comments are closed.

Antibiotic adjuvants: rejuvenating our current arsenal of antimicrobials against Group B Streptococcus

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Antibiotic adjuvants: rejuvenating our current arsenal of antimicrobials against Group B Streptococcus

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Join the Campaign against GBS Disease in babies!

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