Medicosnext
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global public health threat, and there is an ever growing list of bacteria that are becoming resistant to treatment with the currently available antibiotics. To add to this, very few new antibiotics are in the pipeline. Now, researchers at the Wistar Institute, USA, say that they have discovered a new class of compounds with a direct lethal action on drug-resistant bacteria, in addition to a rapid immune response to fight antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
Bacteria acquire drug resistance by mutating the target antibiotics are aimed at, that is, functions like nucleic acid and protein synthesis, cell membrane build-up, and metabolic pathways, thus making the drugs ineffective. The researchers focused on a metabolic pathway called methyl-D-erythritol phosphate (MEP), which is responsible for biosynthesis of isoprenoid, the molecules required for cell survival in most pathogenic bacteria. IspH enzyme, an essential enzyme in isoprenoid biosynthesis, was targeted to block this pathway and kill the bacteria.
The study identified and synthesized novel IspH inhibitor molecules capable of entering inside the bacteria, and demonstrated that they also stimulated the immune system with more potent bacterial killing activity than the best antibiotics currently available, without being toxic to human cells.
Reference: Science Daily, December 23, 2020.
