TEMPO.CO, Jakarta – Hundreds virus Infectious bacteria have been found on toothbrushes and shower head. However, this is not too much of a concern because these viruses are not dangerous to humans. Instead, research is believed to reveal new ways to kill drug-resistant bacteria.
It is known that toothbrushes and also shower head filled with bacteria from the mouth and water outlets in our homes. But there is not much information about the viruses that live there as well.
To get a clearer picture, Erica Hartmann from Northwestern University, Illinois, USA, and her colleagues took samples swab from 92 shower head and 36 toothbrushes in the bathrooms of many citizens across the country. Hartmann comes from the Department of Pulmonary Medicine and Critical Care at the Faculty of Medicine.
By sequencing the DNA of the samples in each swab That time, researchers discovered more than 600 viruses that are known to infect bacteria, called bacteriophages. A total of 532 viruses are known to belong to 32 families of bacteria in the same place. However, of those 32 only Spingomonadaceae, BurkholderiaceaeAnd Caulobacteraceae which is found both on toothbrushes and in shower heads.
Most of these viruses, which are harmless to humans, come from toothbrushes, many of which were previously unknown. “This just reinforces how many new things are out there,” Hartmann said New Expert.
Hartmann et al didn’t even test whether the viruses also affected the thousands of bacteria they found in their samples swab the same man. Hartmann simply said that bacteriophages tend to hijack the bacterium’s molecular machinery to multiply, and then kill the bacterium.
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“Or, viruses can integrate into the bacterial genome and change how the bacteria behave,” he explains.
He said that the named bacteriophage is likely to be present on all wet surfaces in the house, such as under it (sink waste) and refrigerator. “We think they’re everywhere,” said Hartmann, whose team’s findings were published in an online journal Frontiers in Microbiomes9 October 2024.
Jack Gilbert, professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Diego, considers the results as an interesting resource for better understanding the range and details of bacteriophage activity in a home.
Meanwhile, a biology and social hygiene researcher from Germany’s Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences, Dirk Bockmühl, said the engineered bacteriophage could be used to find more treatments to combat drug-resistant bacteria. to kill, “when antibiotics don’t work.”
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2024-10-19 14:31:00
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