The researchers say that the discovery of teixobactin, which blocks several targets at the same time in the bacterial cell wall, will allow new opportunities to cure chronic diseases caused by resistant bacteria, including MRSA, which threatens the health of those hospitalized all over the world.
For years, antibiotic-resistant pathogens (bacteria) have been one step ahead of antibiotic developers. The accumulation of mutations that made the bacteria resistant to antibiotics caused a serious crisis in the public health system, which could be a widespread breeding ground for infection with resistant bacteria that harm people whose immune systems are extremely weak.
Prof. Kim Lewis, Prof. Selva Epstein from Northwestern University and their colleagues presented a recently discovered antibiotic known as teixobactin that eliminates the bacteria without being disturbed by the resistance mechanism. The research was published yesterday (Wednesday) in the journal Neisser for an article with partners also from universities in Germany, as well as from the companies Novobiotic from Massachusetts and Selation from Great Britain.
In the introduction to the study, the researchers write: "Bacterial resistance to antibiotics is spreading faster than the rate of development of new types of antibiotics and their reaching the stage of clinical trials and the market, which causes a crisis in the field of public health."
"Most types of antibiotics have been developed by scanning soil-dwelling micro-organisms, but this limits resources to only bacteria that can be cultured and grown in the laboratory. Synthetic approaches to antibiotic production have not been able to replace this platform. Bacteria that cannot be cultured make up 99% of all species in the external environment and are an inexhaustible source of new antibiotics. We have developed several methods for growing these wild bacteria by preparing the culture in their natural environment using specific growth factors."
"In the report, we describe a new antibiotic that they call tyxobactin, which was discovered by scanning uncivilized nomads. Teixobactin suppresses cell wall synthesis by attaching to sections of lipid-lipid 3 in the cell wall." (In other words, the antibiotic binds to the building blocks of the wall and makes its synthesis difficult and that it works on several goals at the same time. AB)
"We have not identified mutants of Staphylococcus aureus or Mycobacterium tuberculosis that show resistance to Teixobactin. The properties of the new compound herald a new path towards the development of antibiotics that will prevent the development of resistance."
In the future, the researchers hope to develop the taixobactin into a drug. According to them, it is a finding that challenges the long-standing scientific determination and may guarantee the treatment of chronic diseases such as tuberculosis, for which the drugs against which have strong side effects, and those caused by the MRSA bacterium - the resistant bacterium that is spreading in hospitals all over the world. The researchers used a biological chip known as the iChip - a miniature device that Epstein's team members developed for the purpose of isolating and growing individual cells in their natural environment and therefore provided the researchers with much improved access to bacteria that cannot be grown in culture.
The company Novobiotic, which was founded on the basis of these discoveries, has since isolated about 50 thousand strains of such bacteria and discovered 25 types of antibiotics, with the teixobactin being the last, and according to Lewis, the most interesting. "Our impression is that nature produced a compound that evolved to be free of resistance," says Lewis.
Prof. Gerard Wright, from the Department of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences at McMaster University, who was not involved in the research, examined the material and published the results of his experiments in a separate article that was also published in the same issue of Nature. In his article, Wright wrote that it is still necessary to examine whether other mechanisms exist, apart from those tested against teixobactin in nature. The research of Wright and his staff also led to the discovery of antibiotics with similar properties.
"The study offers hope that innovation and creativity can solve the antibiotic crisis," writes Wright.
In 2013, Lewis revealed a study, which was also published in Nature, that presents a new approach to the treatment and elimination of the MRSA bacteria or the superbug that affects millions of people around the world every year. In the current article, as mentioned, he also announces the compound that will eliminate them for good.
Thank you to Dr. Erez Garti from the Davidson Institute for Science Education, the educational arm of the Weizmann Institute of Science, website editor davidson online
On the same topic on the science website:
- The reluctance of pharmaceutical companies to develop new antibiotics for economic reasons could set us back decades when it comes to life expectancy. Prof. Ada Yonat's lecture at the Life Science Baltics 2012 conference
- The ongoing war between antibiotics and bacteria. Interview with Prof. Ada Yonat (2002)
14 תגובות
Miracles, I don't completely agree, precisely the better we understand the structure of bacteria (which is practically what is happening, for example thanks to the decoding of their genome) the more we find in them more and more weak points that can be exploited (for example thanks to the decoding of the structure of the ribosome - Ada Yonet, we can to develop more effective antibiotics that will damage the bacteria's ribosomes and prevent them from multiplying or creating proteins).
The opposition to vaccines, homeopathy and the issue of religion, all these have always been and are quite marginal in my opinion in the context of the scientific research we are talking about.
Eyal
There is a lot of progress in medicine, right? But bacteria put science in your pocket. Add to that the ever-increasing opposition to vaccines, the stupidity of homeopathy, naturopathy and the rest of the nonsense, and you'll see the strengthening of religion in the world. Still optimistic? 🙂
Miracles, as far as I can tell, the field of medicine is actually developing at a faster and faster rate - thanks to new technologies that have been developed, thanks to the decoding of the human genome (and the genome of bacteria and other animals), thanks to much faster computers that make it possible to carry out simulations of complex biological processes that would not have been possible perform in the past. All of these allow researchers a much better understanding, and much faster progress in various medical fields.
I have no doubt that medicine today is developing at a much faster pace than what we saw say 20-30 years ago, and I am sure that within 10-20 years we will also see clear results of this in the field.
It is true that it is not good to be too optimistic, but it is also not good to be too pessimistic, you need the right combination of both.
Uri, these short-sighted people are called: MYOPIC PESSIMIST 😉
Ori
If you really think that enough money and effort is invested in medical research, I won't argue with you. You must know what you are talking about.
Miracles, and what do you call short-sighted people who are unable to see a meter ahead and do not notice natural and obvious processes that other people do manage to see?
Asaf
Do you know what you call those who think they know what the future will hold?
In my opinion, pessimistic groups of people are the ones who will (maybe) save humanity: those who are looking for the next asteroid, those who think there is global warming (regardless of whether there is or not), and those who fear violent bacteria.
And there are those who say "it will be fine". We were already there...
For miracles, your vision is limited to today's technogolia, but you have to see it at the level of processes. For example, today the issue of resistant bacteria is quite marginal. It is true that there are some people who die every year because the antibiotics do not help them, but to be honest it is not really interesting to humanity except for the media who enjoy scaremongering. Flu, for example, is much more deadly by orders of magnitude. When the matter of the immunity of the bacteria becomes a significant problem, the big money will start flowing in this direction and the problem will be solved very quickly. In any case, I don't believe that resistant bacteria will succeed in reaching a situation where they threaten human culture, and even with smaller budgets, the problem will probably be solved.
Dr. Rosenthal would prefer that you sign as Dr. Rosenthal to avoid confusion. I've been signing Assaf's name on the site for years and I'm not the only one. Even if I sleep, others will come.
Dr. Rosenthal
Do you agree with one of the opinions here? They are quite the opposite…
Again:
Since when I write comments I identify myself as: Asaf,
It should be clarified that the respondent here named "Asaf" is (?),
Asaf, I think exactly like you, also regarding the rate of progress, and I am sure that science will eventually (and not in hundreds of years) find a solution that will be a knock-out blow to bacteria, with all due respect to their high rate of change.
I'm actually optimistic.
Asaf
The rate of change in bacteria is much higher than the rate of drug development. Therefore - I am not as optimistic as you. Today humanity is in a bad situation, and one of the reasons is the saying "it will be fine". In particular - I see no reason to think that progress in the field of medicine is exponential.
Science is developing at an exponential rate, don't believe all the seers of blackness who think we have ended the battle, immune bacteria, fuel reserves will run out, world hunger...
Since the beginning of humanity we have gone through much more serious things and the events hardly managed to slow down the development a bit in historical view. In my opinion, the bacteria is also a minor problem that will be completely resolved in a short time.