Effect of ascorbic acid on Mycobacterium tuberculosis biofilms
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Abstract
Planktonic cultures of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacterium responsible for the lung disease tuberculosis (TB), are highly susceptible to killing by ascorbic acid (vitamin C). As planktonically grown M. tuberculosis are unlikely to be representative of the bacterium during infection, we set out to determine if ascorbic acid was also antibacterial against M. tuberculosis growing as a biofilm. We use biofilm growth as a model for the multiple phenotypic states M. tuberculosis can exist in during an infection. In our experiments we employed bioluminescent M. tuberculosis H37Rv (BSGTB1) in which light production is a non-destructive surrogate measure of bacterial viability. Light levels were monitored before and after treatment with 1mM to 256mM ascorbic acid. After 3 weeks of treatment, biofilms were disrupted, washed and inoculated into fresh media to look for sterilisation. Our findings show that ascorbic acid concentrations of 32mM or greater reduced bioluminescence produced by M. tuberculosis BSGTB1 growing in biofilms to background levels and resulted in the death of all cells within the biofilm. This indicates that M. tuberculosis biofilms are susceptible to inhibition and killing by ascorbic acid (vitamin C) and suggests that novel antibiotics with a mode of action similar to ascorbic acid could represent a useful avenue of investigation for TB treatment.
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2014. Effect of ascorbic acid on Mycobacterium tuberculosis biofilms. PeerJ PrePrints 2:e633v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.633v1note This preprint is not peer-reviewed. You may wish to reference the subsequent peer-reviewed version of this article.
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This is a submission to PeerJ for review.
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Competing Interests
Siouxsie Wiles is an Academic Editor for PeerJ.
Author Contributions
James P Dalton conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, analyzed the data, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, wrote the paper, prepared figures and/or tables, reviewed drafts of the paper.
Benedict Uy performed the experiments, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, reviewed drafts of the paper.
Simon Swift conceived and designed the experiments, analyzed the data, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, reviewed drafts of the paper.
Siouxsie Wiles conceived and designed the experiments, analyzed the data, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, wrote the paper, prepared figures and/or tables, reviewed drafts of the paper.
Data Deposition
The following information was supplied regarding the deposition of related data:
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Funding
This work was supported by the Maurice Wilkins Centre for Molecular Biodiscovery and the University of Auckland Vice-Chancellor’s Strategic Development Fund and Faculty Research Development Fund. SW is supported by a Sir Charles Hercus Fellowship (09/099) from the Health Research Council of New Zealand. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
