Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Minimum inhibitory concentration
Summary
In microbiology, the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) is the lowest concentration of a chemical, usually a drug, which prevents visible in vitro growth of bacteria or fungi. MIC testing is performed in both diagnostic and drug discovery laboratories.
The MIC is determined by preparing a dilution series of the chemical, adding agar or broth, then inoculating with bacteria or fungi, and incubating at a suitable temperature. The value obtained is largely dependent on the susceptibility of the microorganism and the antimicrobial potency of the chemical, but other variables can affect results too. The MIC is often expressed in micrograms per milliliter (μg/mL) or milligrams per liter (mg/L).
In diagnostic labs, MIC test results are used to grade microbes as "S" (susceptible or responding to a standard dosing regimen), "I" (intermediate or requiring increased exposure) or "R" (resistant). These grades are assigned based on agreed upon values called breakpoints. Breakpoints are published by standards development organizations such as the U.S. Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI), the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (BSAC) and the European Committee on Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing (EUCAST). The purpose of measuring MICs and grading microbes is to enable physicians to prescribe the most appropriate antimicrobial treatment.
The first step in drug discovery is often measurement of the MICs of biological extracts, isolated compounds or large chemical libraries against bacteria and fungi of interest. MIC values provide a quantitative measure of an extract or compound’s antimicrobial potency. The lower the MIC, the more potent the antimicrobial. When in vitro toxicity data is available, MICs can also be used to calculate selectivity index values, a measure of off-target to target toxicity.
After the discovery and commercialization of antibiotics, microbiologist, pharmacologist, and physician Alexander Fleming developed the broth dilution technique using the turbidity of the broth for assessment.
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.
Related lectures (1)
Deformable Structures I: Introduction
Introduces the computation of deformations in structures by combining struts and rigid members, emphasizing equilibrium and displacement diagrams.
Related publications (27)
Related people (5)
Related concepts (2)
Bacteria
Bacteria (bækˈtɪəriə; : bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one biological cell. They constitute a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria were among the first life forms to appear on Earth, and are present in most of its habitats. Bacteria inhabit soil, water, acidic hot springs, radioactive waste, and the deep biosphere of Earth's crust. Bacteria play a vital role in many stages of the nutrient cycle by recycling nutrients and the fixation of nitrogen from the atmosphere.
Chloramphenicol
Chloramphenicol is an antibiotic useful for the treatment of a number of bacterial infections. This includes use as an eye ointment to treat conjunctivitis. By mouth or by injection into a vein, it is used to treat meningitis, plague, cholera, and typhoid fever. Its use by mouth or by injection is only recommended when safer antibiotics cannot be used. Monitoring both blood levels of the medication and blood cell levels every two days is recommended during treatment. Common side effects include bone marrow suppression, nausea, and diarrhea.