Alcohol increases bacterium’s virulence
From Atlanta, at a meeting of the American Society for Microbiology
New research suggests that ethanol, the intoxicating ingredient in alcoholic beverages, may step up the virulence of a particular bacterial species.
The bacterium Acinetobacter baumannii is responsible for numerous infections, such as pneumonia, meningitis, and urinary tract infections in people. Recently, this bacterial species has been implicated in blood infections in more than 100 U.S. soldiers stationed in Iraq.
Michael Smith and Michael Snyder of Yale University had been using A. baumannii in their studies of interactions between bacteria and yeast. The researchers noticed that colonies of the bacterium grew better when they were near yeast than when they weren’t. They traced the effect to the ethanol that the yeast was secreting while fermenting sugar.