Centre of Biosciences SAS
Topic
Postbiotics - an effective approach to inactivate undesirable microbiota in animals
PhD. program
Microbiology
Year of admission
2025
Name of the supervisor
MVDr. Monika Pogány Simonová, PhD
Contact:
Receiving school
Universtity of Veterinary Medicine and Pharmacy in Košice
Annotation
Antibiotic resistance is a global, still current problem in humans and animals. Despite efforts to replace synthetic antibiotics (ATB), especially in animal production, with natural additives providing prophylactic but also medicinal effects, there is a high percentage of ATB-resistant bacterial strains. Carbapenem-resistant enterobacteria, methicillin-resistant staphylococci and vancomycin-resistant enterococci/staphylococci, represent a particularly big problem. Therefore, new substances are continuously being sought to reduce the occurrence and transmission of these bacteria, but also to alleviate the ecological burden, since a large number of them are excreted into the environment and wild animals also become vectors or reservoirs. Postbiotics represent an innovative approach for inactivation/inhibition of undesirable microbiota, as they are preparations of non-living microorganisms and/or their components that provide health benefits to the host, i.e. metabolites of beneficial bacteria – bacteriocins (antimicrobial proteins), or substances extracted from the bacterial cell wall after its destruction. The main goal of the dissertation will be the isolation, selection and target a group of undesirable and/or potentially pathogenic bacterial strains, multi-resistant (with an emphasis on vancomycin resistance) bacteria from the genera Staphylococcus and Enterococcus from various animal species and their characterization (resistance to antibiotics, presence of virulence factors, ability to form biofilms, enzyme activity). In vitro testing of the antimicrobial and antibiofilm effect of postbiotics-bacteriocins tested and characterized at the CBs SAS IAP (Košice) on this undesirable and multiresistant microbiota, as well as their application in animals as part of a model experiment (mice, rabbits), will expand basic information about the antimicrobial spectrum of these bioactive substances in laboratory conditions, but also about their direct effect in the animal organism (microbiological status, immunological, biochemical and physiological parameters).