Cystic fibrosis is an inherited disease that causes nonfunctioning chloride and thiocyanate channels in cells, leading to thick mucus that does not clear from the lungs and pancreas. The life expectancy of those with the disease is 37 years old in the United States while much lower in undeveloped countries. Short lives are often due to frequent infections by microbes such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which are currently treated by antibiotics but are becoming resistant to them. Gallium nitrate was just approved by the FDA to treat these infections; however, our group discovered that Pseudomonas develops drug resistance to this treatment in as little as four days of consecutive treatments, possibly due to the cationic nature of the gallium species and Pseudomonas control over its ion channels. In this research, we studied the effects of water-insoluble gallium complexes on Pseudomonas bacteria. We used a nanoprecipitation method from our group’s previous work to create aqueous colloidal suspensions of water-insoluble gallium complexes, and then tested the effectiveness of these complexes in minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and 30 day resistance studies. We show that these complexes create a better defense against chronic Pseudomonas infections than gallium alone.

Development of nanoprecipitated water-insoluble gallium complexes for treatment of infections caused by cystic fibrosis

2019 Spring National Meeting

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