ArticleThe Journal of antimicrobial chemotherapy2021
Identification of bile acid and fatty acid species as candidate rapidly bactericidal agents for topical treatment of gonorrhoea.
Article in The Journal of antimicrobial chemotherapy, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
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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.
The trial behind it
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 7 citations in OpenAlex.
- Fatty acids-based compounds as novel prophylaxis or treatment for oropharyngealEmerging microbes & infections · 2026Article
- Targeting Membrane Transport and Energy Metabolism for the Identification of Repurposed Drug Candidates AgainstAntibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Integrating bile acid metabolism into precision nutrition strategies for improved swine performance.Animal nutrition (Zhongguo xu mu shou yi xue hui) · 2026Review
- A semi-solid in vitro biofilm model for evaluating antimicrobial potency and biofilm-specific activity.Biofilm · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 5 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundNovel therapeutic strategies are urgently needed for Neisseria gonorrhoeae, given its increasing antimicrobial resistance. Treatment of oropharyngeal N. gonorrhoeae infections has proven particularly challenging, with most reported treatment failures of the first-line drug ceftriaxone occurring at this site and lower cure rates in recent trials of new antibiotics reported for oropharyngeal infections compared with other sites of infection. However, the accessibility of the oropharynx to topical therapeutics provides an opportunity for intervention. Local delivery of a therapeutic at a high concentration would enable the use of non-traditional antimicrobial candidates, including biological molecules that exploit underlying chemical sensitivities of N. gonorrhoeae but lack the potency or pharmacokinetic profiles required for effective systemic administration.
methodsTwo classes of molecules that are thought to limit gonococcal viability in vivo, bile acids and short- and medium-chain fatty acids, were examined for rapid bactericidal activity.
resultsThe bile acids deoxycholic acid (DCA) and chenodeoxycholic acid (CDCA), but not other bile acid species, exerted extremely rapid bactericidal properties against N. gonorrhoeae, reducing viability more than 100 000-fold after 1 min. The short-chain fatty acids formic acid and hexanoic acid shared this rapid bactericidal activity. All four molecules are effective against a phylogenetically diverse panel of N. gonorrhoeae strains, including clinical isolates with upregulated efflux pumps and resistance alleles to the most widely used classes of existing antimicrobials. DCA and CDCA are both approved therapeutics for non-infectious indications and are well-tolerated by cultured epithelial cells.
conclusionsDCA and CDCA are attractive candidates for further development as anti-gonococcal agents.
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Registered trials
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.