Abstract
Staphylococci are the most common pathogens isolated from skin infections in livestock or companion animals. Antibiotic therapy is the best treatment for infections, but local or systemic use of antimicrobials increases the risk of bacterial resistance. Insects are rich in antimicrobial peptides, which can reduce bacterial resistance and can be used to treat bacterial infections after skin burns. We propose that the use of the darkling beetle (Z. morio) hemolymph to treat skin infections in mice by Staphylococcus haemolyticus is one of the alternatives. Z. morio hemolymph alleviated the increase in wound area temperature in mice with a skin infection, reduced the bacterial load of the wound, and accelerated the wound healing speed significantly. Pathological sections showed that Z. morio hemolymph can significantly reduce inflammatory cell infiltration, and promote skin tissue repair. Real-time fluorescent quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) revealed that the Z. morio hemolymph can significantly reduce the levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines, including interleukin-1 beta (IL-1β), interleukin-6 (IL-6), tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), and chemokine interleukin-8 (IL-8). Our findings suggest that Z. morio antibacterial hemolymph can promote wound contraction, relieve local inflammatory responses and promote wound healing in mice infected with a heat injury, which has a positive therapeutic effect and enormous potential for skin thermal injury.
Highlights
Staphylococci are a group of bacteria that play an important role in clinical, veterinary, economic and agricultural fields, as they have strong resistance to antimicrobials and various virulence factors [1]
These mice were randomly divided into four groups, receiving a different treatment, (1) control group: no thermal injury and infection operation; (2) saline group: thermal injury on day 0 and challenge with S. haemolyticus No.11478 1 × 108 colony-forming unit (CFU), saline was used to smear the wound, two times a day; (3) erythromycin group: thermal injury and inoculation with S. haemolyticus No.11478 (1 × 108 CFU), the wound was smeared with erythromycin ointment, two times a day and (4) XTRC beetle group: thermal injury and inoculation with S. haemolyticus No.11478 (1 × 108 CFU), the wound was smeared with Z. morio hemolymph, two times a day
The results showed that the number of in‐ flammatory cells in the normal saline group was significantly higher than that in the er8ytohf ‐13 romycin and hemolymph treatment groups, which proved that Z. morio hemolymph can effectively reduce inflammatory cell infiltration (Supplementary Figure S4)
Summary
Staphylococci are a group of bacteria that play an important role in clinical, veterinary, economic and agricultural fields, as they have strong resistance to antimicrobials and various virulence factors [1]. Staphylococcus aureus can be isolated from the skin or mucosa of 67.3% dogs and 73.8% cats in 383 registered companion pets [3]. Infection of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus was reported in the skin and soft tissues of the horse, and it can be colonized in clinical personnel [4,5]. Many coagulase-negative and -positive staphylococcal species can be isolated from goat skin infections and secondary to other primary skin diseases [7]. S. haemolyticus is one of coagulase-negative Staphylococcus (CoNS) isolated from infected human clinical samples [8]. It is involved in opportunistic infections in immunocompromised patients, leading to an increase in the prevalence of hospitalized patients [9]
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