Researchers have developed a microfluidic-based drug screening chip to identify synergistic interactions between two antibiotics. The chip could be used to form clinically relevant antibiotic interactions, for screening of other cell-type agents, and for guiding clinical therapies. Details of the chip are described in the journal Lab on a Chip.
Combination therapy has become a widely used strategies to combat antibiotic resistance, but the wrong combination of antibiotics can lead to complications and even worsen results, leading to suppression of antimicrobial effects. It is thus important to test antibiotic combinations before use, but conventional methods are inconvenient and can take more than 24 hours to produce results.
To reduce time and increase testing efficiency, researchers from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) developed a chip that can generate 121 pairwise concentrations between two antibiotics in only 35 minutes.
To use the chip, a mixture of bacterial samples and agarose is loaded into the microchannel and reagents with or without antibiotics are injected into the surrounding microchannel. The diffusion of antibiotic molecules from the channel with antibiotics to the one without results in the formation of two gradients of two antibiotics on the agarose gel. The combinations can then be screened for inhibition of bacterial growth with a microscope. This process takes approximately six hours and can confirm the synergy or antagonism of the combinations.
The full test can be performed less than 8 hours, making it a promising candidate for future antibiotic screening uses. The researchers hope to be able to take it to have it available for commercial use in the near future.
Image: These are examples of testing results using the microfluidic chips developed in this research. Image courtesy of KAIST.