Bacteria could be stopped from hiding in ’standby mode’

Researchers are unraveling the mystery of how bacteria switch into 'standby mode' in the human body, enabling the bugs to evade antibiotics. Bacteria enter standby mode when they encounter adverse conditions in the body, such as when they are starved of nutrients. This enables them to shut down their metabolism, and remain in this state until conditions become more favourable. However, because antibiotics can only efficiently kill bacteria when they are metabolically active, the drugs cannot do so once bacteria have entered standby. Not only does this result in patients suffering long-term, hard-to-treat infections, but it also could lead to antibiotic resistance. "Chronic or recurrent infections are a major problem in healthcare," said Professor Sivaramesh Wigneshweraraj, from the Department of Medicine at Imperial College London. To combat this, scientists at Imperial are investigating how to block bacteria entering standby mode, so that they remain vulnerable to antibiotics.