A non -toxic antibiotic compound for humans is effective against bacteria indifferent also to the latest resource drugs: it was hidden in the ground.
A new antibiotic potential that contrasts several superbatters has been discovered in the ground of the garden of a laboratory technician. As explained in a study published on Naturethe peculiarity of the mixture is that it targets The rebiosomesthe bacteria protein factories, in a way that the drugs currently available do not do. And which also leaves the bacteria resistant to the last resource treatments.
Those looking for find. Gerry Wright, a biochemical of the McMaster University of Hamilton, Canada, has collected soil champions that he has kept in Petri capsules with a half of crop for a year. Then he exposed the microorganisms so cultivated with champions of Escherichia colia common inhabitant of the gastrointestinal tract which can however cause diseases in humans and animals in some cases.
The idea of Wright and colleagues was to look for microorganisms that had developed unusual weapons To combat superbatters: remember that the antimicrobial resistance was directly responsible, only in 2021, of 1.1 million deaths in the world, a budget that could rise to 1.9 million per year by 2050.
Taken! A kind of bacterium belonging to the genre Paenibacillusmicroorganisms that can be found in the ground, water or plant material, has shown a particularly powerful antibacterial activity. These bacteria produce a molecule (specifically a peptide, that is, a short chain of amino acids) which forms a node similar to a cowboy lazo.
Factory in chaos. The molecule, renamed lariocidinebinds its lazo to the rebi and the transfers of the bacterium-pierce cell, which provides the ribosome with the amino acids that need to form proteins. In doing so, it prevents the genetic code from being read correctly, and indeed corrupts it. As a result Ribosome produces wrong peptideswho have a toxic action on the bacterium and kill him. This mechanism of action is different from that used by other antibiotics, and pathogens are not used to it: therefore have not yet had the opportunity to develop resistance mechanisms against it.
Encouraging signals. The scientists subsequently tested the properties of lariocidine against common bacteria, including some responsible for multiresistent infections. The molecule has slowed down the growth of pathogens And he did not prove to be toxic to man. It would also seem sufficiently “solid” to survive digestion.
Effective against a highlander bacterium. So the proof of the nine: the team used lariocidine to treat infected mice with theAcinetobacter Baumannii C0286superbatteria resistant to carbapenemiantibiotics used in serious infections, the last resource against infections resistant to other treatments.
While the untreated mice died after 28 hours at most, those treated were still alive two days after the initial infection and had lower levels of bacteria in the blood.
A long road. The group of scientists started the long and complex process to transform lariocidine into a drug. Before the substance is an utilio in the clinical field, time and studies will take: it will be necessary to increase its power so that it is effective in minor doses, verify how it accumulates and how it is expelled from the human body, and find a way to create smaller versions of the molecule, which risk less than causing adverse effects.
