It seems likely that maprotiline somehow promotes the growth of bacteria. While out results can’t show the exact mechanism by which this occurs, one possibility is that the presence of maprotiline increases the metabolic rate of these bacteria or allows the bacteria to uptake nutrients at a faster rate than they do in the absence of this compound.
For your future directions, would you think of synthesizing (if two are equally good at inducing bacteriostasis) an in-between molecule that could potentially be more effective?
That’s a very interesting idea. Synthesizing a hybrid molecule that targets multiple targets of a bacterium to induce bacteriostasis could hypothetically be very effective for some infections in which bacteria have mutated to be resistant to one method of targeting but is still vulnerable to another. That would certainly be worth potential further study.
Given our current results and knowledge, I may now hypothesize that tertracyclic antidepressants have a growth-promoting effect on S. typhimurium. In order to further test this hypothesis, it would be of great interest to study the impact of other tetracyclics against these bacteria.
Why do you think your results indicated that you actually have a higher growth of the salmonella bacteria with higher doses of maprotiline?
It seems likely that maprotiline somehow promotes the growth of bacteria. While out results can’t show the exact mechanism by which this occurs, one possibility is that the presence of maprotiline increases the metabolic rate of these bacteria or allows the bacteria to uptake nutrients at a faster rate than they do in the absence of this compound.
Were there any other compounds that were of interest that could have been as effective within the experiment?
For your future directions, would you think of synthesizing (if two are equally good at inducing bacteriostasis) an in-between molecule that could potentially be more effective?
That’s a very interesting idea. Synthesizing a hybrid molecule that targets multiple targets of a bacterium to induce bacteriostasis could hypothetically be very effective for some infections in which bacteria have mutated to be resistant to one method of targeting but is still vulnerable to another. That would certainly be worth potential further study.
If you could change your hypothesis knowing what you do after experimentation, what would you change?
Given our current results and knowledge, I may now hypothesize that tertracyclic antidepressants have a growth-promoting effect on S. typhimurium. In order to further test this hypothesis, it would be of great interest to study the impact of other tetracyclics against these bacteria.