The appearance of the first antibiotics was a true revolution, it was a paradigm shift in the History of Medicine. However, its indiscriminate use, self-prescription and incorrect duration of treatment have caused the appearance of bacteria resistant to antibiotics, which pose a serious threat to public health.
To alleviate this situation, researchers have focused their attention on metals, since some, such as iron, gold or silver, can be lethal to most microbes.
Killing bacteria with gold
In this line of work, researchers from the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Rovira i Virgili University have managed to eliminate multi-resistant bacteria with gold nanoparticles synthesized in the laboratory.
These are nanoparticles with an almost spherical shape and about 100 nanometers – eight times smaller than the diameter of a hair – that manage to deform the bacterial cell wall.
So far the good news, however the B side of this ingenious solution lies in the fact that nanoparticles are not always capable of distinguishing between bacteria and the organism’s own cells, and can generate toxicity in humans.
It is precisely this concern, the integrity of the host cells, that has caused some scientists to now be working on adding a ligand to the nanoparticle shell.
The Microscopic Philosopher’s Stone
Nicholas Flamel (1330-1418) was a Parisian rabbi and bourgeois who, like other medieval alchemists, sought to find the formula capable of turning any metal into gold. Obviously, he died without success, but a group of scientists from the University of Adelaide, in Australia, have been quite close.
Some time ago they found a bacterium, called Cupriavidus metalliduranscapable of thriving in environments rich in heavy metals and metabolizing toxic compounds, transforming them into microscopic gold nuggets.
Although this bacterium could play a key role in the creation of gold from the disintegration of geologically originated primary gold ores, we still have a long way to go in the wonderful universe of microbial alchemy.
gold hitters
For centuries the most common way of finding precious minerals was panning, that is, separating gravel and sand to obtain the heavier materials. The batters did it with the help of a flat container, in the form of a deep plate.
In this line, that of the gold hitters, the research of the group of scientists who discovered theDelftia acidivoransa gram negative bacteria capable of solidifying gold creating complex solid structures similar to those of gold nuggets.
The Delftia acidivorans carries out this process in just a few seconds, at room temperature and in conditions of neutral acidity. To do this, it releases a proteindelfibactin A– which acts as a shield against poisonous ions by converting gold into particles that accumulate outside the cells. At the moment the amount of particles it releases is very small, between 25 and 50 nanometers in diameter, but who knows, perhaps in the future production will increase.