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13/01/24 07:05 AM IST

Jammu CSIR lab finds cannabis plant compound has antibiotic effects

In News
  • The study revealed tetrahydrocannabidiol obtained from cannabis could fight methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.
Major findings
  • Scientists at CSIR-Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine (IIIM), Jammu, have found that phytocannabinoids, a class of compounds found in the cannabis plant, possess some hitherto unexplored antibiotic properties.
  • Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a major health concern worldwide. It refers to when bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites no longer respond to medicines used to treat them.
  • IIIM researchers tested the antibacterial properties of tetrahydrocannabidiol (THCBD), a semisynthetic phytocannabinoid, against Staphylococcus aureus, the bacteria responsible for the second most number of deaths due to AMR worldwide.
India's AMR burden
  • India reported 2.97 lakh deaths in 2019 that could be attributed to AMR and 10.42 lakh others that could be associated with AMR.
  • Reports have also flagged the overuse of antibiotics in India, their misuse in animal husbandry, and poor waste disposal for engendering AMR and potentially rendering India the “AMR capital of the world”.
Solutions
  • Antibiotics are chemical compounds isolated from one microorganism and used to kill another. They have saved millions of lives since their discovery but are falling short against AMR bacteria.
  • S. aureus includes a strain known as MRSA, for methicillin-resistant S. aureus, resistant to the last line of antibiotics called methicillin.
  • The study revealed THCBD obtained from cannabis could fight MRSA.
THCBD
  • Cannabinoids are a class of compounds found in the cannabis plant.
  • The prefix ‘phyto’ in phytocannabinoid means it comes from a plant. Cannabinoids bind to receptors in the bodies of animals to produce a variety of neurological effects.
  • The researchers extracted cannabidiol from a cannabis plant and made it react with hydrogen, using palladium as a catalyst.
  • This process yielded a mixture of molecules with the same composition and order of atoms but different structures. One of them was THCBD.
  • THCBD comes from cannabis, which is notorious for its intoxicating properties. As a result it hasn’t been easy to collaborate on phytocannabinoid research with other institutes.
Source- The Hindu

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