Bacterial resistance to antibiotics is one of the biggest challenges in the medical field. University of Yeshiva Albert? The researchers of Einstein Medical College have developed a new generation of antibiotic compounds that will not cause bacterial resistance and can be safely applied to human body. The relevant research is published in the latest issue of the Journal of chemical biology.
These compounds mainly target two "notorious" bacteria??? Vibrio cholerae, which causes cholera, and Escherichia coli 0157:h7, which comes from food pollutants, cause about 110000 diseases and 50 deaths in the United States every year.
Most antibiotics perform well at first, and can almost completely kill the cells they attack. However, through mutation and the pressure of survival of the fittest imposed by antibiotics, many bacterial cells can always escape death, reproduce in large numbers, and develop drug-resistant strains.
The study was conducted by fern? Led by Dr. schelman, he believes that antibiotics that can reduce the infectivity of bacteria but will not kill bacteria can reduce the risk of drug resistance in the future. Previous studies have also proved that bacteria communicate with each other through the generation and detection of signal molecules called self inducers (which can coordinate the expression of bacterial genes and adjust some processes including the application of toxicity). This process is called "quorum sensing". Strains that are deficient in quorum sensing cause less severe infections. Therefore, interfering with quorum sensing has become the direction of efforts.
In addition to killing Vibrio cholerae and Escherichia coli, the researchers aimed to disrupt the ability of bacteria to communicate through quorum sensing. The researchers found that the bacterial enzyme mtan is related to the synthesis of self inducers that play a key role in quorum sensing. They designed an enzyme agent. Compared with the natural enzyme agent of mtan, mtan can be more closely combined with the designed agent. This agent will always "lock" mtan and prohibit it from increasing the thrust of quorum sensing.
In this study, schelman and colleagues tested three compounds that block quorum sensing channels. These three compounds are powerful in disrupting quorum sensing of Vibrio cholerae and Escherichia coli. In order to know whether the bacteria will develop drug resistance, the researchers tested the analogues of the following 25 generations of the two bacteria. The results showed that the 26th generation was as sensitive to antibiotics as the first generation.
Schelman calls these objects permanent antibiotics. He believes that many other aggressive bacterial pathogens??? Streptococcus pneumoniae, Neisseria meningitidis, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Staphylococcus aureus all express mtan and may therefore be sensitive to these compounds.
Schelman has developed more than 20 powerful mtan inhibitors, all of which can be safely used in humans, because mtan is a bacterial enzyme, and preventing it has no effect on human metabolism.
