Research Council of Norway: FORNY2020 program
New infections caused by multidrug-resistant bacteria are an increasing problem in both human and veterinary medicine. In agriculture, mastitis and listeriosis are painful diseases with high mortality rates, often caused by bacterial infections not efficiently treated with traditional antibiotics.
Mastitis is usually caused by Staphylococcus aureus, and is the animal disease leading to the greatest milk production loss worldwide. The disease costs the dairy industry in Norway 245 million NOK per year and upwards of USD 2 billion per year in the United States. Listeriosis is caused by the ingestion of low quality feed contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, and may lead to huge economic losses due to infected animals and the retraction of contaminated feed.
We have recently isolated new peptides, known as bacteriocins, from probiotic bacteria. These bacteriocins exhibit antibacterial effects on a range of pathogenic bacterial strains and their drug-resistant derivatives. Our results so far show that these bacteriocins are effective in combating antibiotic-resistant bacteria isolated from mastitis infections. We have successfully developed a prototype formulation that efficiently kills Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in a mouse infection model.
The technology will be further developed through this 2-year FORNY2020 project, funded by the Norwegian Research Council. The overall goal of the project is to develop novel antimicrobial products based on our patented bacteriocins, for effective treatment and prevention of mastitis and listeriosis in domestic animals like cows and goats. We will continue to develop the prototype formulation and do efficiency studies in field trials with a bovine mastitis model, and a goat listeriosis model.
Deltakere
Ibrahim Mehmeti
Doctor