Researchers from McMaster University in Canada have proposed a new approach to the development of antibiotics that may help solve the problem of drug resistance of infectious agents. The results of the study are published in the journal Nature Chemical Biology.
The scientists drew attention to the fact that in contrast to laboratory conditions, where the studied bacteria are contained in a nutrient medium, in the human body, microbes often face a lack of vitamins and amino acids necessary for their development, so they have to synthesize these substances themselves. Based on this data, the Canadian research team focused on finding compounds that block the production of beneficial substances by bacteria. As a result of experiments on Escherichia coli, three molecules were isolated that inhibit the synthesis of substances necessary for metabolism, such as biotin and para-aminobenzoic acid.
The new approach is radically different from the classical one, which involves the search for chemical compounds that block the development of bacteria in a rich nutrient medium specially created in the laboratory.
According to the preliminary conclusion of the researchers, the new approach has significant potential for creating fundamentally new antibiotics.
Aspirin and ibuprofen work where antibiotics are powerless
Infections caused by superbugs can be defeated with painkillers.
As scientists have found out, these drugs have an unexpected side effect – they do not allow some bacteria to multiply, writes Catholic Online. This discovery was made by the University of Wollongong.
Its employees urge to pay close attention to anti-inflammatory painkillers prescribed for arthritis and eye diseases. We are talking about non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, not antibiotics (for example, amoxil and others). These include aspirin and ibuprofen.
The described properties of this class of drugs give hope for obtaining development of antibiotics. In particular, it was proved that bromfenac, carprofen and vedaprofen inhibited the reproduction of bacteria. Moreover, the scheme of their work was fundamentally different from the scheme of antibiotics.
They attached themselves to a part of the bacterium known as the DNA sliding clamp proteins. These proteins enhance the process of DNA reproduction. If the proteins are not included in the process, the bacterium cannot reproduce and eventually dies.