Hydrogen Gas Kills Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria in Lab Study
- Authors
- Hui Li, Xiling Song, Wenkang Liu, Yu Zhang, Heyuan Guan, Junlin Wu, Siming Yu, Wei Xue
- Journal
- Journal of Materials Chemistry B
- Year
- 2023
- DOI
- 10.1039/d2tb02068h
- Study Type
- Cell Culture
- Outcome
- Positive
- Peer Reviewed
- Yes
- Country
- China
- Health Condition
- Antibiotic-Resistant Infections
- Body System
- Immune System
TL;DR
Hydrogen gas can effectively kill drug-resistant bacteria and even break down the tough biofilms they form, potentially offering a new way to treat infections that don't respond to antibiotics.
Key Finding
Hydrogen gas released from nanoparticles killed drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacteria in laboratory tests by damaging cell membranes, generating toxic molecules inside cells, and damaging bacterial DNA, while also reducing the bacteria's antibiotic resistance.
Summary
Researchers tested whether hydrogen gas could kill drug-resistant bacteria, specifically a strain called Staphylococcus aureus that doesn't respond to common antibiotics. Using a special nanoparticle (PdH) that releases hydrogen gas when heated, they found that hydrogen damaged bacterial cell membranes, created harmful molecules inside the cells, and damaged bacterial DNA—ultimately killing the bacteria. Hydrogen also reduced the bacteria's resistance to antibiotics by turning down genes that help bacteria survive drugs.
Practical Takeaway
This is an early laboratory study using a specialized nanoparticle delivery system, not a test of hydrogen water in humans or animals. While the results are promising for potential future antibacterial therapies, much more research—including animal and human studies—would be needed before any health claims could be made. This finding does not yet support using hydrogen water as a treatment for bacterial infections.
Abstract
Currently, multidrug resistant (MDR) bacterial infections are a great threat to public health, and the development of novel strategies for high efficiency combatting of MDR bacteria is in urgent demand. Hydrogen (H2) is a small gas with a high reducing ability, and plenty of recent studies have demonstrated its therapeutic effect on many diseases. However, the antibacterial effectiveness and mechanism of H2 against MDR bacteria are still unknown. In the present work, using PdH nanohydride with a temperature responsive H2-releasing property as the H2 source, we demonstrated that H2 was not only able to inhibit the growth of normal Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus), but could also effectively eliminate single drug resistant S. aureus (CRSA) and multidrug resistant S. aureus (MRSA), as well as the biofilms formed by those bacteria. Moreover, an in-depth mechanism regarding the anti-antibiotic-resistance activity of H2 was elucidated by us, in which H2 exerted its antibacterial effect by firstly causing severe membrane damage, followed by boosting generation of intracellular ROS, which subsequently triggered DNA damage and finally led to bacterial death. The proposed mechanism was further verified by genomic analysis, where a cluster of genes related to bacterial membrane integrity, biofilm formation, metabolism and DNA functions was significantly perturbed by the released H2. In particular, H2 boosted intracellular ROS generation by destroying the redox homeostasis of bacterial metabolism. More importantly, we revealed that H2 was able to alleviate the antibiotic resistance of CRSA and MRSA by significantly down-regulating the expression of many drug-resistant genes, e.g. the norG gene of CRSA, and fmtA, gpsB, sarA and marR genes of MRSA, as well as reducing the minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) of ciprofloxacin/ampicillin against CRSA/MRSA. The findings in our work suggested that H2 therapy is a promising tool for combating antibiotic-resistant bacteria.