Cranberry juice is known for its anti-adhesive and anti-infective properties. However, whether these effects can enhance antibiotic activity or reduce the emergence of antibiotic resistance has remained unclear. To investigate this, an in vitro study evaluated the impact of cranberry juice on Fosfomycin, a first-line treatment for uncomplicated urinary tract infections (UTIs) caused by Escherichia coli.
The study showed that cranberry juice significantly enhanced fosfomycin activity and reduced the frequency of spontaneous fosfomycin-resistant mutants by up to five orders of magnitude in 72% of the 32 tested uropathogenic E. coli clinical isolates. Whole-genome sequencing revealed that resistant mutants arising in the absence of cranberry juice mainly carried mutations in the glpT gene, whereas mutants isolated in the presence of cranberry juice more commonly harbored mutations in uhpT…
