Early prediction of the bactericidal and bacteriostatic effect of imipenem and doxycycline using tabletop scanning electron microscopy.

Our work aims at establishing a proof-of-concept for a method that allows the early prediction of the bactericidal and bacteriostatic effects of antibiotics on bacteria using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) as compared to traditional culture-based methods. We tested these effects using Imipenem (bactericidal) and Doxycycline (bacteriostatic) with several strains of sensitive and resistant Our method revealed total agreement with the CFU method and classic definition by visualizing the effect of the antibiotic at 60 minutes and 120 minutes using SEM. This early prediction allows a rapid and early identification of the bactericidal and bacteriostatic effects as compared to culture that would take a minimum of 18 hours. This has several future applications in the development of SEM-automated assays coupled to machine learning models that identify the antibiotic effect and facilitate determination of bacterial susceptibility.

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Copyright © 2024 Zmerli, Hodzic, Bellali, Azar and Bou Khalil.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

The authors declare that this study received funding from Hitachi High-Tech Corporation. Personal fees of AH, SB, and JB are paid through a collaborative contract from the company Hitachi High-Tech Corporation. The funder was not involved in the study design, collection, analysis, interpretation of data, the writing of this article or the decision to submit it for publication. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.