Isothermal microcalorimetry (IMC) calscreener: automated peculiarities of antimicrobial therapy and metabolism depth of multidrug resistant bacteria

Abstract

Background The global development of innovative antimicrobial drugs and drug design techniques has been necessitated by the persistent increase of multidrug resistant infections. Regardless of advances in technology for detecting pathogenic bacteria and their resistance genes (DNA-based assays), most bacteriological studies of infections still use conventional cultural techniques and susceptibility testing as reference standards. Commonly used conventional assays such as the disc diffusion test and broth micro-dilution have been effective in defining pathogen susceptibility and determining the minimum inhibitory concentration of antimicrobial agents. However, they are still prone to error and time consuming, hence, not sufficient in the face of the urgent need for answers to sporadic worldwide disease maladies. Main body In this review, we describe a developing but promising method for gauging/measuring the amount of energy released when a cell is actively metabolizing, which may then be used to calculate the bacterial cell's growth rate. The isothermal microcalorimetry (IMC) calscreener translate heat production of cellular metabolism which is pertinent to the operation of all biological life in demonstrating a more advanced technique for drug design and discovery, especially in the area of pathogen-specific chemotherapy. Conclusion The IMC calscreener technology is sacrosanct in establishing the heat levels in microwatt to read the metabolic kinematics of biological specimens with emphasis on medically-relevant bacteria within a closed scheme. The application of this technology also looks promising in antimicrobial chemotherapy and metal recovery.

Antibiogram profile prediction of selected bacterial strains by in silico determination of acquired antimicrobial resistance genes from their whole-genome sequence

“…More frequently used method for the phenotypic determination of the sensitivity of bacteria to antibiotics is the disc diffusion method, clearly showing the pattern of susceptibility or resistance to each antibiotic tested, measured through the zone of inhibition. Automated methods of testing antimicrobial resistance have been developed over the years, including the Vitek 2 system, BD Phoenix M50, Microscan, IMC calScreener among (Anjum 2015;Hong et al 2019;Jayol et al 2018;Sivaraman et al 2021;Bayode et al 2022).…”

“…Jayol et al (2018) further stated that automated systems such as BD Phoenix, MicroScan, and Vitek2 cannot be used to detect colistin resistance due to high error rates when compared to BMD. Bayode et al (2022) reviewed the use of isothermal microcalorimetry (IMC) calScreener and extensively discussed its use in the determination of susceptibility of Grampositive and Gram-negative bacteria as well as biofilms of polymicrobial nature.…”

Towards faster identification of MRSA and MSSA: analysis of calorimetric curve parameters from large hospital bacterial collections

“…The detection limit of isothermal microcalorimetry is 200 nW, meaning that only as few as 100,000 bacteria are needed for detection, since a typical growing bacterium generates around 2 pW (8). This makes this real-time detection technique highly sensitive and useful in multi-variable studies, which consequently is an adequate tool for susceptibility testing of various antimicrobials (4, 9, 10).…”