Hospital superbugs can use the same kind of poisons that are found in rattlesnakes to fight natural defences of the patients' bodies, say researchers.
While making a presentation at the Society for General Microbiology's Autumn meeting at Trinity College in Dublin, University of Cambridge researchers said that the toxins are manufactured by communities of the hospital superbug Pseudomonas aeruginosa called biofilms, which are up to a thousand times more resistant to antibiotics than free-floating single bacterial cells.
"This is the first time that anyone has successfully proved that the way the bacteria grow - either as a biofilm, or living as individuals - affects the type of proteins they can secrete, and therefore how dangerous they can potentially be to our health," said Dr. Martin Welch from the University of Cambridge, UK.
"Acute diseases caused by bacteria can advance at an astonishing rate and tests have associated these types of disease with free-floating bacteria. Such free-floating bugs often secrete tissue-damaging poisons and enzymes to break down our cells, contributing to the way the disease develops, so it is natural to blame them. By contrast, chronic or long-term infections seem to be associated with biofilms, which were thought to be much less aggressive," added Dr. Welch.
As regards the significance of their findings, the researchers said that they may be very important to the NHS, which spends millions of pounds every year fighting chronic long-term bacterial infections which are incredibly difficult to treat.