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Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, September 2000, p. 2419-2423, Vol. 44, No. 9
0066-4804/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

Effect of Metronidazole on the Pathogenicity of Resistant Bacteroides Strains in Gnotobiotic Mice

Claudio Galuppo Diniz,1 Denise Carmona Cara,2 Jacques Robert Nicoli,1 Luiz De Macedo Farias,1 and Maria Auxiliadora Roque De Carvalho1,*

Departamento de Microbiologia1 and Departamento de Patologia Geral,2 ICB-UFMG, 30.161-970 Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil

Received 31 January 2000/Returned for modification 31 March 2000/Accepted 7 June 2000

Metronidazole is widely used to treat protozoan and fungal infections. As an antibacterial drug, it is used mainly against anaerobes. Among anaerobes, the Bacteroides fragilis group is the most relevant in terms of frequency of recovery and antimicrobial resistance patterns. The use of metronidazole and other antimicrobial drugs induces morphological changes in this bacterial group. The present study investigated in vivo if these morphological modifications were accompanied by changes in virulence patterns by using germfree mice experimentally challenged with metronidazole-resistant Bacteroides strains before and after exposure to metronidazole. It was observed that metronidazole-resistant strains were more virulent after contact with the drug, as demonstrated by anatomicopathologic data for spleen, liver, and small intestine samples. These results suggest that long-term therapy and high metronidazole concentrations could interfere with microbial pathogenicity, resulting in changes to host-bacterium relationships.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Departamento de Microbiologia, ICB-UFMG, Caixa Postal 486, 30.161-970 Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil. Phone: 55.31.499.27.61. Fax: 55.31.499.27.30. E-mail: marc{at}mono.icb.ufmg.br.

Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, September 2000, p. 2419-2423, Vol. 44, No. 9
0066-4804/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.


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