Common food preservative may hold cure for cystic fibrosis
Published: January 27, 2006
Researchers at the University of Cincinnati have found that common food preservatives may provide treatment for cystic fibrosis.
It has been known for some time that the bacterium, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, grows within the deadly, lung-clogging mucous found in the airways of cystic fibrosis patients and significantly weakens them.
The new study suggests, however, that a mutation—known as mucA— in the organism also represents a fatal flaw that could help physicians clear the characteristic “goop” from the lungs of advanced cystic fibrosis patients.
The reason for optimism, the researchers say, is that the same genetic change that turns Pseudomonas aeruginosa into a sticky, antibiotic-resistant killer also leaves it susceptible to destruction by slightly acidified sodium nitrite, a common chemical that is widely used in the curing of lunch meat, sausages and bacon.
“We believe that we have discovered the Achilles’ heel of the formidable mucoid form of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which could lead to improved treatment for cystic fibrosis airway disease,” said Dr. Daniel Hassett, PhD, an associate professor in UC’s molecular genetics, biochemistry and microbiology department.
“We can essentially say that this organism, which some people thought could never be beaten, can now be destroyed by nothing more exotic than a common food preservative,” he added.
Cystic fibrosis, which affects about 30,000 people in the United States, mostly Caucasians of north European origin, is an inherited disease caused by a defect in a gene called the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR). Affecting the airways and many other vital organs and processes, cystic fibrosis is chronic, progressive and ultimately fatal, mostly as a result of respiratory failure.
The good news is that Dr. Hassett and his colleagues found that about 87 percent of the mucoid Pseudomonas organisms they studied have a “fatal flaw” in the very gene (mucA) that makes it mucoid as well as antibiotic and immune-system resistant—they are easily destroyed by slightly acidified (pH 6.5) sodium nitrite.
“However, nitrites are used clinically, to counteract cyanide poisoning, warts and athlete’s foot, for example. And in neonatal pulmonary hypertension, physicians may be using nitrite doses nearly 60 times higher than we use to kill the organism in mouse and human airway cells,” Hassett said.
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