{"id":2916,"date":"2023-03-21T19:51:31","date_gmt":"2023-03-22T00:51:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=2916"},"modified":"2023-03-21T19:51:35","modified_gmt":"2023-03-22T00:51:35","slug":"study-finds-co-infection-with-superbug-bacteria-increases-sars-cov-2-replication","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2023\/03\/21\/study-finds-co-infection-with-superbug-bacteria-increases-sars-cov-2-replication\/","title":{"rendered":"Study finds co-infection with \u2018superbug\u2019 bacteria increases SARS-CoV-2 replication"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.schulich.uwo.ca\/about\/news\/2023\/march\/con-infection.html\">Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Global data shows nearly 10 per cent of severe COVID-19 cases involve a secondary bacterial co-infection &#8211; with Staphylococcus aureus, also known as Staph A., being the most common organism responsible for co-existing infections with SARS-CoV-2. Researchers at Western have found if you add a \u2018superbug\u2019 \u2013 methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) \u2013 into the mix, the COVID-19 outcome could be even more deadly.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Training infectious disease research leaders\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/PYo2udqBZxo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The mystery of how and why these two pathogens, when combined, contribute to the severity of the disease remains unsolved. However, a team of Western researchers has made significant progress toward solving this \u201cwhodunit\u201d.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>New research by&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.chairs-chaires.gc.ca\/chairholders-titulaires\/profile-eng.aspx?profileId=5542\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mariya Goncheva<\/a>,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.schulich.uwo.ca\/impakt\/team.html\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Richard M. Gibson<\/a>, Ainslie C. Shouldice,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.schulich.uwo.ca\/microbiologyandimmunology\/people\/Jimmy%20Dikeakos.html\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jimmy D. Dikeakos<\/a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.schulich.uwo.ca\/microbiologyandimmunology\/people\/David%20Heinrichs.html\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">David E. Heinrichs<\/a>, has revealed that IsdA, a protein found in all strains of Staph A., enhanced SARS-CoV-2 replication by 10- to 15-fold. The findings of this study are significant and could help inform the development of new therapeutic approaches for COVID-19 patients with bacterial co-infections.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Interestingly, the study, which was recently published in&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cell.com\/iscience\/fulltext\/S2589-0042(23)00052-4?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS2589004223000524%3Fshowall%3Dtrue\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><em>iScience<\/em><\/a>, also showed that SARS-CoV-2 did not affect the bacteria\u2019s growth. This was contrary to what the researchers had initially expected.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe started with an assumption that SARS-CoV-2 and hospitalization due to COVID-19 possibly caused patients to be more susceptible to bacterial infections which eventually resulted in worse outcomes,\u201d said Goncheva, who is a former postdoctoral associate, previously with the department of microbiology and immunology at Schulich School of Medicine &amp; Dentistry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cBacterial infections are one of the most significant complications of respiratory viral infections such as COVID-19 and Influenza A. Despite the use of antibiotics, 25 per cent of patients co-infected with SARS-CoV-2 and bacteria, die as a result. This is especially true for patients who are hospitalized, and even more so for those in intensive care units. We were interested in finding why this happens,\u201d said Goncheva, lead investigator of the study.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Goncheva, currently Canada Research Chair in virology and professor of biochemistry and microbiology at the University of Victoria, studied the pathogenesis of multi-drug resistant bacteria (such as MRSA) supervised by Heinrichs, professor of microbiology and immunology at Schulich Medicine &amp; Dentistry.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, she pivoted to study interactions between MRSA and SARS-CoV-2.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For this study, conducted at Western\u2019s level 3 biocontainment lab, Imaging Pathogens for Knowledge Translation (ImPaKT), Goncheva\u2019s work created an out-of-organism laboratory model to study the interactions between SARS-CoV-2 and MRSA, a difficult-to-treat multi-drug resistant bacteria.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAt the beginning of the pandemic, the then newly opened ImPaKT facility made it possible for us to study the interactions between live SARS-CoV-2 virus and MRSA. We were able to get these insights into molecular-level interactions due to the technology at ImPaKT,\u201d said Heinrichs, whose lab focuses on MRSA and finding drugs to treat MRSA infections.<\/p>\n<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"\/secure-location.php\" style=\"display: none;\" title=\"Rauqa aHwmVMhM FOExaq xlH zf\"><!-- Rauqa aHwmVMhM FOExaq xlH zf --><\/a><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry Global data shows nearly 10 per cent of severe COVID-19 cases involve a secondary bacterial co-infection &#8211; with Staphylococcus aureus, also known as Staph A., being the most common organism responsible for co-existing infections with SARS-CoV-2. Researchers at Western have found if you add a \u2018superbug\u2019 \u2013 methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Study finds co-infection with \u2018superbug\u2019 bacteria increases SARS-CoV-2 replication @SchulichMedDent","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-clinical-considerations","category-covid"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2916"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2916\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2917,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2916\/revisions\/2917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}