Drug Delivery and Translational Research - Featured Article: May 2023
Read the featured article from the May 2023 issue! (this opens in a new tab)
Preterm born infants are often susceptible to necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), a terrible disease associated with impaired intestinal barrier properties, and are often empirically treated with intravenous broad-spectrum antibiotics. Yet, it is unclear how this antibiotics exposure, as well as the way they are dosed, affects the intestinal barrier and minimizes the risk of developing NEC. We show that permeability rates through intestinal mucosa from piglets dosed with the combination of enteral and parenteral antibiotics were comparable to the rates in untreated piglets, whereas the piglets dosed with parenteral antibiotics had lower permeability rates. Interestingly, decreased permeability rates through the mucus alone were evident, suggesting that the change in the mucosa permeability to a large extent was caused by altered mucus permeability. Mixing the antibiotics with untreated mucus had no effect, suggesting that the altered properties of mucus were caused by other associated events induced by the antibiotics.