Combination of Cannabidiol and Bacitracin Against Resistant Bacteria

Emergence of antibiotic resistant bacteria has become a world-wide concern resulting in approximately 700.000 deaths annually and is thought to increase to 10 million by 2050 if we do nothing to stop this. Many pharmaceutical companies have chosen to turn their back on developing new antibiotics since the financial risk of this is too high compared to the possible gain. Therefor, we need to turn to other directions such as use of helper compounds.
Helper compounds, also known as antibiotic adjuvant and resistance breakers are in general non-antimicrobial compounds normally found to be a former drug used in psychopharmacology. These compounds are able to potentiate an antibiotic towards bacteria that would otherwise be resistant towards the antibiotic. The mechanism for this can be through efflux pump inhibition, inactivation of antibiotic degrading enzyme, biofilm inhibition and so on.
In the research group of Janne Kudsk Klitgaard, we have found that a compound from the cannabis plant, Cannabidiol (CBD), is able to potentiate the effect of the cell wall active antibiotic bacitracin against resistant Gram-positive bacteria (Patent No. 17176612.4–1466) such as Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), Listeria monocytogenes, and Enterococcus faecalis. During our search to reveal the mechanism behind the synergy between CBD and Bacitracin we found that the combination is able to cause various changes in S. aureus such as cell division complication visualized by several septum formation and initiation of septum as well as membrane irregularities. Furthermore, we have created CBD resistant strains by growing S. aureus in daily increasing concentration of CBD followed by whole-genome sequencing of the strains. The sequence data revealed mutations in wall teichoic acid synthesis as well as mutations in a gene encoding an efflux pump and its regulator.
Our future plan is to create a crème containing CBD and Bacitracin for treatment of skin infections with Gram-positive bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus.