Australian chemists have developed a potential new antibiotic that could help in the battle against antibiotic resistant bacteria, including the methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.
“Existing antibiotics target the bacterial cell membranes but this potential new antibiotic operates in a completely different way,” explained Prof Andrew Abell from the University of Adelaide’s School of Chemistry and Physics, who is a senior author of the paper published in the journal Chemical Science.
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“The compound, although at a very early stage of development – it has not yet been tested on an animal model – has the potential to become the first of a new class of antibiotics.”
The compound is a protein inhibitor that binds to an enzyme called biotin protein ligase, stopping its action and interrupting the life cycle of the bacteria.
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“Bacteria quickly build resistance against the known classes of antibiotics and this is causing a significant global health problem,” Prof Abell said. “Preliminary results show that this new class of compound may be effective against a wide range of bacterial diseases, including tuberculosis which has developed a strain resistant to all known antibiotics.”
The scientists used a novel approach called ‘in situ click chemistry’ to develop the new protein inhibitor. “A selection of small molecules is presented to the bacteria in a way so that the target protein enzyme itself builds the inhibiting compound and also binds with it.”
“In a sense the bacteria unwittingly chooses a compound that will stop its growth and assembles it – like building a weapon and using it against itself. We’ve gone a step further to specifically engineer the enzyme so that it builds the best and most potent weapon.”
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“Our results are promising. We’ve made the compounds; we know they bind and inhibit this enzyme and we’ve shown they stop the growth of a range of bacteria in the laboratory. The next critical step will be investigating their efficacy in an animal model,” Prof Abell concluded.
