In Vivo Antibacterial Activity of Acetazolamide

Nader S Abutaleb; Ahmed Elkashif; Daniel P Flaherty; Mohamed N Seleem

doi:10.1128/AAC.01715-20

In Vivo Antibacterial Activity of Acetazolamide

Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 2021 Mar 18;65(4):e01715-20. doi: 10.1128/AAC.01715-20. Print 2021 Mar 18.

Authors

Nader S Abutaleb^{1

2}, Ahmed Elkashif¹, Daniel P Flaherty^{3

4

5}, Mohamed N Seleem^{6

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Comparative Pathobiology, College of Veterinary Medicine, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA.
² Department of Biomedical Sciences and Pathobiology, Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA.
³ Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, College of Pharmacy, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA.
⁴ Purdue Institute for Drug Discovery, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA.
⁵ Purdue Institute of Inflammation, Immunology, and Infectious Disease, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA.
⁶ Department of Comparative Pathobiology, College of Veterinary Medicine, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA seleem@vt.edu.

Abstract

Vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) represent a major public health threat that requires the development of new therapeutics. In the present study, acetazolamide (AZM) was evaluated against enterococci. It inhibited different enterococcal strains tested at clinically achievable concentrations. Moreover, AZM outperformed linezolid, the drug of choice for VRE infections, in two in vivo VRE mouse models-murine colonization-reduction and VRE septicemia. Collectively, these results indicate that AZM warrants consideration as a promising treatment option for VRE infections.

Keywords: VRE bloodstream infections; VRE decolonization; acetazolamide; carbonic anhydrase inhibitors; vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE).

Publication types

Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

MeSH terms

Acetazolamide / pharmacology
Animals
Anti-Bacterial Agents / pharmacology
Anti-Bacterial Agents / therapeutic use
Gram-Positive Bacterial Infections* / drug therapy
Linezolid / pharmacology
Mice
Vancomycin-Resistant Enterococci*

Substances

Anti-Bacterial Agents
Linezolid
Acetazolamide

Grants and funding

R01 AI148523/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/United States