In the wonderful micro-field, bacteria form a vast and mysterious empire. They are staggering in number, varied in variety and varied in their ways of survival. In every inch of the earth, every drop of water, every corner of the earth, bacteria are rooted in their resilience. Some bacteria are nature’s “scavers” who are involved in the process of material cycling and decomposition; others share the same life with other organisms, such as the interdependencies between the pneumocococcus and the soybean plant, which help plants to fix nitrogen. However, in this seemingly calm bacterium world, a war without fumes is silent: there is a vexing confrontation between humans and disease-causing bacteria, and resistance is the key weapon in the hands of mankind.
One of the main protagonists of the resistance is antibiotics. Since penicillin was accidentally discovered, antibiotics are like a star shining in the sky of medicine. They are capable of accurately combating critical physiological processes such as cytowall synthesis, protein synthesis or nucleic acid metabolism of bacteria, thereby inhibiting their growth and reproduction and even directly killing them. Antibiotics have played a powerful role in the treatment of bacterial infectious diseases such as red fever and diphtheria, which have once been devastating, by pulling countless people back from the brink of death, radically changing human passivity in the face of bacterial infections and greatly contributing to the advancement and development of modern medicine.
But the war was not a smooth one, and the bacteria were by no means in wait. Under the strong pressure of antibiotics, they evolve and resistance becomes a serious global challenge. Some bacteria acquire resistant genes for antibiotics through mutation of genes, which then spread rapidly among bacterial groups. Today, the emergence of superb bacteria such as methooxysilin-negative sepsis (MRSA) and vancocin-resistant intestinal fungi (VRE) makes clinical treatment difficult. Pre-conventional antibacterial treatment programmes are ineffective in their face, and patients may face problems such as long-term re-infection, increased complications, extended hospitalization and a significant increase in medical costs. If we do not effectively contain the spread of bacterial resistance, we may in the future return to the dark age of incipient bacterial infections.
In addition to traditional antibiotics, humans are constantly exploring other sources of resistance. The development of new antibacterial drugs has never stopped, and scientists have sought inspiration from marine organisms, micro-organisms and synthetic chemicals to develop antibacterial drugs with innovative mechanisms to break the existing resistance. For example, some antibacterial beaks are becoming new to the field of antibacterial research because of their broad spectrum of antibacterial activity and their lack of easy inducement to bacteria to produce resistance. In addition, there is a growing emphasis on non-pharmaceutical antibacterial methods, such as the use of UV, high-temperature and high-pressure physical methods, which play an important role in areas such as medical equipment disinfection and food processing, and on cacteroid therapy, which uses bacterial predators that specialize in bacteria to control bacterial infections, an ancient and re-emerging antibacterial method that shows a unique advantage in the treatment of specific antibacterial infections.
The development and evolution of antibacterial forces is a matter of the healthy fate of humankind in this silent battle against the bacterial world. We need both to rationalize the use of existing antibacterial weapons and to avoid the misuse of antibiotics that lead to increased bacterial resistance, and to continue to develop innovations to tap new antibacterial resources and technologies. Only in this way can humanity maintain its advantage in this long-lasting war with bacteria, guarding its own healthy line of defence, and allowing life to shine on the challenges of the microworld.
