Nature Medicine Study Highlights Impact of Doxycycline-Post Exposure Prophylaxis for STI on Gut Microbiome
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Taking a dose of the oral antibiotic doxycycline after a high-risk sexual encounter has dramatically reduced the incidence of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in places where the strategy is being tried.
Despite its effectiveness, the new strategy, known as Doxycycline post-exposure prophylaxis, may come with risks, especially with chronic use. Experts worry about the impact on the community of gut bacteria, also known as the microbiome, and the potential that the antibiotic will give rise to resistant strains of bacteria.
Doxycycline post-exposure prophylaxis did not have much impact on the overall composition of bacterial communities in gastrointestinal tracts. But scientists noted signs of resistance building against tetracycline, the class of antibiotic that doxycycline belongs to, which could make it less effective.
The study was published in Nature Medicine.
“While doxycycline post-exposure prophylaxis did not appear to have global impacts on the gut microbiome, it did have impacts on the antimicrobial resistance of gut bacteria, both in terms of the proportion of tetracycline class resistance genes and the amount that were turned on, or expressed,” said Chaz Langelier, MD, PhD, an associate professor of medicine in UCSF’s Division of Infectious Diseases and senior author of the paper. “So, it's not totally innocuous.”
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