Evidence map›Paper›PMID 32687523›Full record

ArticlePloS one2020

Stability of β-lactam antibiotics in bacterial growth media.

Rebecca Brouwers, Hugh Vass, Angela Dawson, Tracey Squires, Sharareh Tavaddod, Rosalind J Allen

Open access · goldAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in PloS one, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 30 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
30citing papers in PubMed
5.0field-weighted citation impact, top 4% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

30 citing papers in PubMed, 49 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Article
  2. Article
  3. UropathogenicMicroorganisms · 2025
    Article
  4. Article
  5. Article
  6. Article
  7. ACS infectious diseases · 2024
    Article
  8. Article
  9. Article
  10. Article
  11. Article
  12. Article
  13. Article
  14. Ribosome-binding antibiotics increase bacterial longevity and growth efficiency.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023
    Article
  15. Evaluation of a Tetracycline-ResistantPathogens (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023
    Article
  16. Article
  17. Article
  18. Article
  19. Article
  20. Review
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

6 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.

Rebecca BrouwersSUPA, School of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom.ORCID 0000-0002-0101-4194
Hugh VassSUPA, School of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom.
Angela DawsonSUPA, School of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom.
Tracey SquiresSUPA, School of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom.
Sharareh TavaddodSUPA, School of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom.
Rosalind J AllenSUPA, School of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom.ORCID 0000-0003-4110-2962
University of Edinburgh · GB

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Laboratory assays such as MIC tests assume that antibiotic molecules are stable in the chosen growth medium-but rapid degradation has been observed for antibiotics including β-lactams under some conditions in aqueous solution. Degradation rates in bacterial growth medium are less well known. Here, we develop a 'delay time bioassay' that provides a simple way to estimate antibiotic stability in bacterial growth media, using only a plate reader and without the need to measure the antibiotic concentration directly. We use the bioassay to measure degradation half-lives of the β-lactam antibiotics mecillinam, aztreonam and cefotaxime in widely-used bacterial growth media based on MOPS and Luria-Bertani (LB) broth. We find that mecillinam degradation can occur rapidly, with a half-life as short as 2 hours in MOPS medium at 37°C and pH 7.4, and 4-5 hours in LB, but that adjusting the pH and temperature can increase its stability to a half-life around 6 hours without excessively perturbing growth. Aztreonam and cefotaxime were found to have half-lives longer than 6 hours in MOPS medium at 37°C and pH 7.4, but still shorter than the timescale of a typical minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) assay. Taken together, our results suggest that care is needed in interpreting MIC tests and other laboratory growth assays for β-lactam antibiotics, since there may be significant degradation of the antibiotic during the assay.

Indexed as

AmdinocillinAnti-Bacterial AgentsBacteriaBiological AssayCefotaximeCulture MediaDrug StabilityHalf-LifeMicrobial Sensitivity TestsTime FactorsAmdinocillinAnti-Bacterial AgentsCefotaximeCulture Media

Identifiers

PMID32687523
PMCPMC7371157
OpenAlexW3044733389

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.