Assessing Lyme Disease Relevant Antibiotics through Gut Bacteroides Panels
Sohum Sheth
Northeastern University
Abstract
Lyme borreliosis is the most prevalent vector-borne disease in the United States caused by the transmission of bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi harbored by the Ixodus scapularis ticks (Sharma, Brown, Matluck, Hu, & Lewis, 2015). Antibiotics currently used to treat Lyme disease include oral doxycycline, amoxicillin, and ceftriaxone. Although the current treatment is effective in most cases, there is need for the development of new antibiotics against Lyme disease, as the treatment does not work in 10-20% of the population for unknown reasons (X. Wu et al., 2018). Use of antibiotics in the treatment of various diseases such as Lyme disease is essential; however, the downside is the development of resistance and possibly deleterious effects on the human gut microbiota composition. Like other organs in the body, gut microbiota play an essential role in the health and disease state of the body (Ianiro, Tilg, & Gasbarrini, 2016). Of importance in the microbiome is the genus Bacteroides, which accounts for roughly one-third of gut microbiome composition (H. M. Wexler, 2007). The purpose of this study is to investigate how antibiotics currently used for the treatment of Lyme disease influences the Bacteroides cultures in vitro and compare it with a new antibiotic (antibiotic X) identified in the laboratory to be effective against B. burgdorferi. Using microdilution broth assay, minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) was tested against nine different strains of Bacteroides. Results showed that antibiotic X has a higher MIC against Bacteroides when compared to amoxicillin, ceftriaxone, and doxycycline, making it a promising new drug for further investigation and in vivo studies.
