Pseudomonas

The review highlights growing concerns around fungicide resistance in Botrytis cinerea, alongside environmental pressures to reduce chemical inputs.

A wide range of microorganisms have shown potential, including Bacillus and Pseudomonas bacteria, yeasts such as Saccharomyces and Metchnicoea, and filamentous fungi including Trichoderma.

These biological agents can suppress Botrytis through several mechanisms, including competition for nutrients and colonization sites, production of enzymes that degrade fungal cell walls, and stimulation of grapevine defense responses.

However, their field performance is strongly influenced by environmental conditions, with higher temperatures and lower humidity generally favoring biological activity.

And when you picture a bacterium, you might imagine a simple single cell that floats around.

For example, let's take Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a bacterium that's gonna come up a lot in our episode today.

It looks kinda like a fuzzy Cheeto with a tail, [laughs] um-

[laughs]

But with a defective CFTR protein, those ions get stuck in the cell, so water doesn't get brought in, and patients end up having very thick mucus.

And this is a major problem because the way that we are supposed to clear the bacteria from our airways is in this mucus, and If you have this defect, that process is impaired, and what happens is that that opens you up for these infections with these opportunistic pathogens.

One of the ones that I study is Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and once it gets in, up to 80% of patients with CF will eventually become colonized with Pseudomonas, and these infections persist for decades.

This causes damage to the lung, and, uh, these infections are incredibly difficult to clear.

Um, I have had a few Malassezia cases, and I can't say it's been the resistant ones off the top of my head that are kind of producing kind of like a biofilm.

Um, 'cause we kind of think like, oh, biofilm is Pseudomonas, but no, actually Malassezia can produce biofilm and it's almost like this almost slimy, waxy debris.

It's very weird.

It's not just wax.

It's kind of slimy.

Um, almost kind of makes you worry that there is a Pseudomonas, but I've cultured it, done cytology.

And in some of these I've actually used something with Tris-EDTA or N-acetylcysteine to kind of use that to help with the cleaning.

So, um, so it kind of depends on the patient.

And no asthma anymore, no bronchiectasis anymore, no recurrence.

And that's what's so beautiful is like, He had mycobacterium, okay? He had Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

These are targets that everybody's trying to figure out a solution for.

We're seeing a lot of Candida auris, and it's supposed to be a hospital-only kind of acquired thing, but we've seen it in people that never went to the hospital, and they're 70% fatal.

So that I think that this is like when their chloride function is not really well, even though they're able to clear it.

But if they got the infection, sort of like a re-attack from the virus or the bacteria, in this case, Pseudomonas, their inflammation was really bad to the point that they easily get into, you know, recalcitrant or troubles.

Great.

So after this study, what did you sort of take from this or what can we take from it to translate to our patients? What's next from a patient standpoint?

Over time, bronchiectasis develops, pulmonary function declines, and respiratory failure becomes the dominant clinical problem.

Chronic infection with organisms such as Pseudomonas remains a major determinant of long-term prognosis.

And the pancreas is affected in a similar way.

Obstruction of pancreatic ducts prevents digestive enzymes reaching the intestine, resulting in pancreatic insufficiency, malabsorption, and poor nutritional status.

And look, I often get asked my opinion on these products and I say nothing's off the cards and you have to factor in the patient where they live, as Phil's just saying, what they have access to, because not everyone has that.

If I go back to vinegar, because the number one question I get in our wound world often, not often, sorry, previously in history, it was used a lot for Pseudomonas.

Can you tell us why? Why did it work?

I think it's simply because of its acidic content.