A chemical compound kills antibiotic resistant bacteria
- A compound called SCH-79797 can damage and destroy cell walls and folate in bacteria.
- The team consists of researchers from Princeton University.
- The compound can kill both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria without detectable resistance.
- The compound targets folate metabolism and membrane integrity which are two different mechanisms within one molecule. Scientists are hoping that this discovery will lead to a better new type of antibiotics.
- One of the weaknesses of antibiotics is that bacteria mutates quickly to resist them. The Princeton team found that they were unable to generate any resistance to this compound.
- Bacteria divides approximately every 20 minutes and gives them a lot of chances to mutate into an antibiotic resister, but with the compound, they did not. The team also did a similar experiment using other antibiotics and the bacteria quickly mutated with resistance.
- An SCH derivative called Irresistin-16 can be used to treat gonorrhea infection in mice.
- The team was able to test the compound against the gonorrhea-causing bacteria that is resistant to every known antibiotic and the compound killed the strain.
- This research should be significant because antibiotic resistance is on the rise outpacing the discovery of new antibiotics which creates a global health crisis.
- Drug regulators has not been approved new antibiotics to treat Gram-negative disease-causing bacteria for almost 30 years.
Sources:
Martin, J. K., 2nd, Sheehan, J. P., Bratton, B. P., Moore, G. M., Mateus, A., Li, S. H., Kim, H., Rabinowitz, J. D., Typas, A., Savitski, M. M., Wilson, M. Z., & Gitai, Z. (2020). A Dual-Mechanism Antibiotic Kills Gram-Negative Bacteria and Avoids Drug Resistance. Cell, 181(7), 1518–1532.e14. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2020.05.005
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200603132541.htm
https://www.scbt.com/p/sch-79797-dihydrochloride-1216720-69-2
