How Do You Stop Flesh-Eating Bacteria? Apply Some Clay
French green clay worked in the wilds of Africa's Ivory Coast—and now is proving its worth in the lab—as an effective treatment for dangerous bacteria
ANTIBACTERIAL CLAY: Researchers have discovered several clays that kill—or prevent from growing—bacteria, including antibiotic-resistant strains. Image: ©ISTOCKPHOTO.COM
In the 1990s French humanitarian Line Brunet de Courssou began treating Buruli ulcer—violent, flesh-eating eruptions of Mycobacterium ulcerans—with two imported French green clays. The application of one type of clay to such lesions produced a pain that some patients equated to childbirth and, after several days, purplish skin tissue surrounding the open wound. A subsequent application of a second variety, this one mixed with shea butter (a fat), produced no pain and helped heal the oozing wound, replacing it with flexible scar tissue over the course of several months.
For centuries the French have used such green clays, rich in iron, for healing wounds. And the clays have proved capable of treating these M. ulcerans outbreaks, for which the only other cure is surgical removal or amputation. But scientific proof was lacking, so Brunet de Courssou enlisted the aid of mineralogist Lynda Williams of Arizona State University (A.S.U.) in Tempe to take pictures of the microscopic structure of the clays and try to figure out the source of their healing powers.
"This clay was unique in that they were very small particle size, 200 nanometers," or one four-hundredth the width of a human hair, Williams says. Their suppliers—French companies Agriletz and Agricur—could not say where the clays came from, but French mineralogists believe they might have formed from volcanic ash deposits in the Massif Central, an upland area in south-central France . "The suppliers themselves either don't know where they come from," Williams says, "or won't tell us."
Intrigued, Williams arranged to test the clays against Escherichia coli, the ubiquitous food pathogen. "That's when we first discovered that the first clay promoted bacterial growth and the second killed it," though she declines to identify either clay specifically. "The suppliers do not have any more antibacterial clay, we tested all of their supplies, so naming them is irrelevant."
But E. coli cultures mixed with the original batch of one of the clays disappeared entirely. "Something in this clay, whether it be physical or chemical, is killing this bacteria," says A.S.U. microbiologist Shelley Haydel, who was enlisted by Williams to help probe both clays' properties.
Haydel then tested the germ-killing clay against a variety of bacteria, ranging from Salmonella to antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. "The strains that we are using are the same ones that pharmaceutical companies use to test their antibiotics," Haydel says. "All of the gram-negative pathogenic bacteria to humans that we've tested, we can kill completely."
Further, as with certain antibiotics such as tetracycline, the clay inhibited the growth of the bacteria that it could not destroy. "The number of cells we start with is 107 Staph. aureus," Haydel says. "After 24 hours, that level reduces tenfold."
How the clay does this remains a mystery, however. Chemical testing revealed no particular minerals or metals in the clay that might explain its antibacterial properties, and even after leaching with water it retains its power. In fact, the clay kills pathogens even when heated to more than 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit (550 degrees Celsius), though it loses its germ-fighting ability when heated to more than 1,650 degrees F (900 degrees C).
Such heating destroys the clay's structure and leaves behind only the heaviest elements, such as radioactive cesium and selenium, along with poisonous arsenic. "But they are all below the minimum inhibitory concentration for E. coli," Williams notes. "They can tolerate 200 parts per million and we're talking about 50 ppm."
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