The article, ‘Small Molecules originating from Microbes (SMOM) and their Role in Microbes-Host Relationship,’ attempts to offer a critical analysis of the interrelationship between the various life-threatening infections affecting mankind and the highly toxic substances produced by pathogenic bacteria. The basic assumption has been that it is the specific pathogenic microbes that cause various life-threatening conditions such as plague, tetanus, sepsis, and cholera, among others. The current research, however, have demonstrated that infectious conditions such as sepsis are caused by the conflict arising from insufficient immune reactions to the pathological bacteria’s own opportunistic microflora rather than the bacteria itself. As such, the study’s main objective is to “detect simple by chemical structure non-protein molecules originating from microbes with molecular weight of up to 500…in human blood under different health conditions” (Beloborodova & Osipov, 2000, p. 14), in an attempt to link the toxic molecules excreted by the microbes to a variety of health conditions, including peritonitis, sepsis, and urinary tract infections.
The researchers propose a hypothesis that non-specific purulent-inflammatory conditions are primarily occasioned by interferences at low-molecular level, that is, they are caused by SMOM, while the molecules homeostasis decompensation is the leading causative agent in complex polyfactorial pathogenesis of various health conditions such as sepsis rather than the microbe itself (Beloborodova & Osipov, 2000). To evaluate the above hypothesis, the researchers studied blood samples of 25 healthy subjects and 161 patients suffering from various health conditions.
The results reveals the existence of SMOM in all the cases studied – healthy subjects and ill patients – in the form of fatty acids, phenyl-carbonic components, aldehyde substances, and alcohol, which are never usually synthesized by human beings, but are metabolites of the microbes (Beloborodova & Osipov, 2000). However, the quantitative and qualitative aspects of the SMOM differ in substantial ways between the patients and the healthy subjects.
Indeed, findings demonstrates that components of minimal molecular weight, which forms the fundamental structural elements of typical endogenous microflora and have significance presence in the blood stream of healthy individuals, vanished completely or were there in extremely low quantities. Also, concentrations of bacteria components or molecules were found to have increased by 10 times in the blood of sick subjects, and some patients recorded concentrations of 100 times. These molecules, according to Beloborodova & Osipov (2000) are rarely found in the blood of healthy people. Other SMOM were also found in the blood of patients. The results of the study, therefore, support the initial hypothesis – that SMOM have the capacity to cause disease. The Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry was used.
The results are significant in that they shed light on the inter-linkages between these substances and the various health conditions affecting people. This study presents knowledge that can be used by practitioners to develop preventive, neutralizing, or regulating strategies for the excreted substances. However, “…there’s still serious lack of knowledge on basic relationship between the superior-host’s and inferior-microbe’s organisms” (Beloborodova & Osipov, 2000, p. 12). A better understanding of this relationship will offer practitioners new tools of regulating the host’s association with its microflora in diverse pathologic environments.
The article, though laced with complicated statistical interpretations, is informative. Indeed, it does not only provide a framework for establishing the relationship between SMOM and various health conditions, but also discusses why maintaining a healthy relationship between some of the microbes and hosts is important for healthy living. More importantly, it provides a new angle of diagnosing and treating some health conditions such as sepsis.
Reference List
Beloborodova, N.V., & Osipov, G.A. (2000). Small molecules originating from microbes (SMOM) and their role in microbes-host relationship. Microbiology Ecology in Health and Diseases, 12(1), 12-21. Web.