- SAN DIEGO - BCTP looks like
skim milk. Laboratory rats gain weight when they eat it. Spray it on your
lawn and the grass will thrive. But according to tests conducted by
University
of Michigan scientists, this seemingly benign material could be a potent
weapon against anthrax---one of the deadliest bacteria on Earth.
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- In a presentation at the Interscience Conference on
Antimicrobial
Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC) on Sept. 26, Michael Hayes, research
associate
in the U-M Medical School, presented experimental evidence of BCTP's
ability
to destroy anthrax spores both in a culture dish and in mice exposed to
anthrax through a skin incision. James R. Baker Jr., M.D., professor of
internal medicine and director of the Center for Biologic Nanotechnology
in the U-M Medical School, directed the research study.
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- BCTP was developed by D. Craig Wright, M.D., chief
research
scientist at Novavax, Inc.---a bio-pharmaceutical company in Columbia,
Md.---and president of Novavax Biologics Division. According to Wright,
the material is made of water, soybean oil, Triton X 100 detergent and
the solvent tri-n-butyl phosphate.
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- "One of the most remarkable characteristics of this
material is its ability to rapidly destroy a wide variety of dangerous
bacteria and viruses, while remaining non-toxic to people, animals or the
environment," Baker said.
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- BCTP's effectiveness against anthrax spores is especially
significant, because they are so difficult to kill. "Spores are like
freeze-dried bacteria," Baker explained. "Their tough outer coat
is resistant to disinfectants, freezing, drought, virtually anything we
can throw at them. Spores can survive in the environment for many years
and still generate live bacteria when given the right combination of water,
nutrients and temperature."
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- Concentrated doses of strong disinfectants like bleach
or formaldehyde will kill anthrax spores, according to Baker.
Unfortunately,
they also are toxic to people and the environment, which makes them useless
for decontaminating a person, a piece of land or equipment exposed to the
bacteria.
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- Since the Persian Gulf War, military authorities have
become increasingly concerned about the threat anthrax and other biological
warfare agents pose both to our armed forces and civilian populations.
"Anthrax is often fatal and easily dispersed through air or
water,"
Baker said. "We know that countries hostile to the United States have
developed strains of anthrax which are resistant to antibiotics and
existing
vaccines. To counter that threat, the Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency (DARPA), is testing several possible new weapons against these
biologic
agents---including BCTP."
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- "When properly formulated, the components in BCTP
form an emulsion of tiny lipid droplets suspended in solvent," said
Wright. "These lipids fuse with anthrax spores causing the spore to
revert to its active bacterial state. During this process, which takes
four to five hours, the spore's tough outer membrane changes allowing
BCTP's
solvent to strip away the exterior membrane. BCTP's detergent then degrades
the spore's interior contents. In scanning electron microscope images,
the spores appear to explode."
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- In his conference presentation, Hayes described how even
low concentrations of BCTP killed more than 90 percent of virulent strains
of Bacillus anthracis spores in a culture dish. "We observed
sporicidal
activity with dilutions as high as one part BCTP per 1,000 parts culture
media," Hayes said.
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- To determine its toxicity to animals, U-M scientists
fed large amounts of BCTP to laboratory rats and injected mice with the
material subcutaneously. The animals gained weight, remained healthy and
suffered no adverse effects.
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- To determine BCTP's effectiveness at treating animals
exposed to anthrax spores, Baker's research team subcutaneously injected
mice with Bacillus cereus---a closely related species of bacteria that
can be safely handled in a university laboratory setting. Like B.
anthracis,
its lethal relative, B. cereus produces large, ulcerous areas of dead
tissue
if it penetrates the skin through a cut or injury. If untreated, these
skin infections spread systemically, producing severe illness and death
in 80 percent of the laboratory mice in the study.
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- "When we washed the animal's skin lesions with BCTP,
the wounds began to heal," Baker said. Mice receiving BCTP either
simultaneously with B. cereus spores or whose wounds were washed with BCTP
an hour after exposure had a 95 percent reduction in lesion size. The death
rate for mice receiving BCTP was only 20 percent.
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- "Rapid inactivation of anthrax bacteria and spores
combined with low toxicity makes BCTP a promising candidate for use as
a broad-spectrum, post-exposure decontamination agent," Baker
said.
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- In future studies, Baker plans to evaluate BCTP's
effectiveness
against inhaled anthrax spores, as well as other bacteria and enveloped
viruses. His research has been funded by DARPA's Unconventional Pathogen
Countermeasures Program. The U-M and Novavax have filed a patent
application
covering BCTP's use as a decontamination agent for various anti-microbial
applications. Baker is a member of the Novavax scientific advisory board,
but has no significant financial interest in the company.
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- Contact:
Sally Pobojewski
- Phone: (734) 647-1844
- E-mail: pobo@umich.edu
- News and Information Services
- News Release 412 Maynard
- Ann Arbor, Michigan
- 48109-1399
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