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Worldwide, we are facing a major public health threat of superbugs and their increasing resistance to current antibiotics. Scientists are leaving no stone unturned for tools in our fight, proposing that bats and bees, sugars in breastmilk and even honey as a few of the possibilities that could bring us salvation. More and more possibilities are being considered showing that there is hope on the horizon. One group of researchers from the University of Buffalo, have been pushing bacteria to the edge. They found that hitting Escherichia coli (E.coli) with a cocktail of three antibiotics was quite effective at killing the bacterium. Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News reported that the novel combination of the three antibiotics killed the E.coli and prevented regrowth within 24 hours.

At the end of July, experts claimed that it is better to stop taking antibiotics when a patient feels better. The analysis published in The BMJ, was reported in The Guardian, and recommended on F1000Prime, challenges the traditional medical advice patients are given on having about completing their course of antibiotics. Experts argue that taking antibiotics for longer than necessary could increase the risk of resistance.

Considering researchers’ efforts to tackle superbugs, we share our top 3 articles on antimicrobial resistance. We also include our usual top 3 articles for the month and our Hidden Jewels. Click on the images for full access to the recommendations.

F1000Prime is a literature recommendation service. The service has a peer-nominated global Faculty of more than 8,000 of the world’s leading biomedical scientists and clinicians who select those articles they think are particularly interesting and important, and write recommendations explaining their selection. From the numerical ratings awarded, we have created a unique system for quantifying the importance of individual articles.

Top 3 article recommendations about antimicrobial resistance

“The identification of this new antibiotic, which is apparently effective against both Staphylococcus aureus and Mycobacterium tuberculosis without any detectable resistance arising, is already extremely exciting, but I predict that this is only the beginning.” – Etienne Joly, ENIGM, France

“In this groundbreaking study, Moyes and colleagues identified the first secreted cytolytic peptide toxin Ece1-III_62-92 for any human fungal pathogen. Given a dearth of effective antifungal drugs and the emergence and prevalence of drug resistance, candidalysin could serve as a potential starting point for novel anti-fungal drug development.” – Joseph Heitman and Ci Fu, Duke University, US

“Staphylococcus aureus resistance to antibiotics is a major worldwide health problem. This article described the use of high-throughput whole genome sequencing to track transmission of this potentially deadly bug around the world.” – Ambrose Cheung, Dartmouth College, US and Adriana Renzoni, Geneva Hospital, Switzerland

Current Top 3 recommendations

Rankings are generated using the article recommended in F1000Prime during the preceding 30 days.

“This is an excellent paper examining a dangerous trend in medical publishing.” – Michael Hoffer, University of Miami Ear Institute, US

“In this study, Ocampo et al. show for the first time that age-associated phenotypes can be reversed in living organisms by cellular reprogramming.” – Wolf Reik and Melanie Eckersley-Maslin, The Babraham Institute, UK

“Senescent cells are pernicious to health. This effect is related to impaired tissue function, tissue homeostasis, and accelerated aging. In this fascinating study, the authors emphasized the baneful effect of senescent cells and a competitive mechanism of salvation.” – Youngseok Lee, Kookmin University, South Korea

Hidden Jewels

Hidden Jewels rankings only include articles published in specialist journals, recommended in F1000Prime during the preceding 30 days.

“This study is innovative, relevant and robust in determining the mechanism by which tissue injury primes the activation of adult stem cells located in distant muscles. The uncovered roles of systemic hepatocyte growth factor and satellite cell cMet fits well with the body of previously published work and ramifies it into a new direction.” – Irina Conboy, University of California, US

“The manuscript of St Leger et al. shows for the first time in mice that there is a bona fide commensal bacterium of the eye. This commensal also serves to maintain the local immune milieu of the conjuctiva and tears, principally through induction of IL-17 by gammadelta T cells. Finally, they show that if the eye commensal is ablated, the eye surface is more susceptible to both bacterial and fungal infection.” – Jonathan Kipnis and Geoffrey Norris, University of Virginia

“While regulation of leading/lagging edge behaviors has been characterized in individual cells, how this is coordinated in sheets of cells is not well understood. Barlan et al. employ mutant clonal analysis and live imaging to show how planar cell polarity conveys a relay signal to migratory cells of the fly ovarian epithelium.” – Michelle Starz-Gaiano, University of Maryland Baltimore County, US