MDRPA to MDSPA

In July 2011, I was so bummed to be admitted to the hospital with very, very few antibiotic options to treat my PA. Basically I had colistin and sorta kinda beta-lactams (intermediate resistance). Not too fun.

Well, thanks to the amazing wisdom of Ms. Mandy - who is always giving me great ideas), I have been taking Chilated Magnesium every day since October.

And in clinic on Jan 12, for the first time in 3 years, my clinic took me off isolation because I no longer have multi-drug resistant PA. Meaning all 3 of my PA strains are susceptible to nearly all classes of antibiotics (one strain is resistant to one class).

Talk about amazing. Incredible. Truly, a God-send.



Here are some studies supporting this outcome (thank you to Mandy's blog for these references):

Proteomic analysis of Pseudomonas aeruginosa grown under magnesium limitation.

Guina T, Wu M, Miller SI, Purvine SO, Yi EC, Eng J, Goodlett DR, Aebersold R, Ernst RK, Lee KA.

Department of Pediatrics, Division of Infectious Diseases, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA. tguina@u.washington.edu 

In this study, large-scale qualitative and quantitative proteomic technology was applied to the analysis of the opportunistic bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa grown under magnesium limitation, an environmental condition previously shown to induce expression of various virulence factors. For quantitative analysis, whole cell and membrane proteins were differentially labeled with isotope-coded affinity tag (ICAT) reagents and ICAT reagent-labeled peptides were separated by two-dimensional chromatography prior to analysis by electrospray ionization-tandem mass spectrometry (ESI-MS/MS) in an ion trap mass spectrometer (ITMS). To increase the number of protein identifications, gas-phase fractionation (GPF) in the m/z dimension was employed for analysis of ICAT peptides derived from whole cell extracts. The experiments confirmed expression of 1331 P. aeruginosa proteins of which 145 were differentially expressed upon limitation of magnesium. A number of conserved Gram-negative magnesium stress-response proteins involved in bacterial virulence were among the most abundant proteins induced in low magnesium. Comparative ICAT analysis of membrane versus whole cell protein indicated that growth of P. aeruginosa in low magnesium resulted in altered subcellular compartmentalization of large enzyme complexes such as ribosomes. This result was confirmed by 2-D PAGE analysis of P. aeruginosa outer membrane proteins. This study shows that large-scale quantitative proteomic technology can be successfully applied to the analysis of whole bacteria and to the discovery of functionally relevant biologic phenotypes. 

PMID: 12837596 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] 

Airway Surface Liquid Contains Endogenous DNase Activity which Can be Activated by Exogenous Magnesium.

Eur J Med Res. 2009 Jul 22;14(7):304-8.

Airway Surface Liquid Contains Endogenous DNase Activity which Can be Activated by Exogenous Magnesium.

Rosenecker J, Naundorf S, Rudolph C.

Department of Pediatrics, University of Munich, Lindwurmstr. 2a, 80337 Munich, Germany. Joseph.Rosenecker@med.uni-muenchen.de.

Introduction: The removal of highly viscous mucus from the airways is an important task in the treatment of chronic lung disease like in cystic fibrosis. The inhalation of recombinant human DNase- I (rhDNase-I) is used to facilitate the removal of tenacious airway secretions in different lung diseases and especially in CF. Little is known about endogenous DNase activity in the airway surface liquid. Therefore, we analysed bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BAL) and exhaled breath condensate (EBC) for the presence of endogenous DNase activity. -

Methods: The degradation of plasmid DNA by BAL from patients who had diagnostic bronchoscopy and bronchoalveolar lavage was analyzed. In a group of CF patients and healthy control volunteers the exhaled breath condensate was obtained and also analyzed for the ability to degrade plasmid DNA. In addition, the ability of magnesium to activate endogenous DNase activity in BAL and exhaled breath condensate was investigated. -

Results: The analyzed BAL samples degraded plasmid DNA only after preincubation with magnesium. When analyzing the exhaled breath condensate the samples obtained from the healthy volunteers showed no DNase activity even after preincubation with magnesium, whereas in one of the two samples obtained from CF patients we found a DNase activity after preincubation with magnesium. -

Conclusion: Increasing the magnesium concentration in the airway surface liquid by aerosolisation of magnesium solutions or oral magnesium supplements could improve the removal of highly viscous mucus in chronic lung disease by activating endogenous DNase activity.

PMID: 19661013 [PubMed - in process]