Will ants help us find new antibiotics?
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Humans can fight off bacteria with our immune system but sometimes we have to help our immune system with antibiotics. Ants also have to deal with bacterial infections but, unlike humans who can go to the drug store to get antibiotics, ants have to produce their own antibiotics.
A new paper just published showed that some ant species make compounds to fight off harmful bacterial. This study is promising as it suggests that ants may be a new source of antibiotics to fight off human diseases.
A youtube video about this research is below:
But not all ants produce antibiotics. The researchers found that 12 of the 20 ant species tested had produced some sort of antibiotics.
There are some limitations of the study as in this study the researchers only tested one bacterial agent and it is not clear how each of the ant species would defend against other bacteria. But it is promising that ants may provide future antibiotics for human use.
Ref: External immunity in ant societies: sociality and colony size do not predict investment in antimicrobials. Clint A. Penick, et al. Royal Society Open Science Feb. 7, DOI: 10.1098/rsos.171332.
I'm surprised that this hasn't been thoroughly explored.
Wondering how ants do against new the many types of antibiotic resistant bacteria.
I'm sure research is being done to see how effective these antimicrobials work on other strains of bacteria.