Researcher’s discovery offers hope in war against antibiotic resistance
The arms race began the moment antibiotics were discovered decades ago — an antibiotic may wipe out most of the target bugs, but the resistant few that do survive multiply until the drug is no longer effective.
Now, McGill University researcher Albert Berghuis has harnessed the Canadian Light Source synchrotron to help solve the growing global health problem of antibiotic resistance.
“We saw something that nobody has seen before. When you first look at these images you get a level of detail — astronomers can feel it when they finally discover a new planet or a new solar system because they know nobody has seen it,” he said.
His team’s discovery has to do with enzymes, which govern the myriad of chemical reactions that keep cells alive — they facilitate life, as Berghuis puts it.
Enzymes are also important in how bacteria resist macrolides, the fourth largest class of antibiotics and one that’s crucial for people who are allergic to penicillin. Berghuis wanted to find out how bacteria do it — enzymes typically have specific functions, but these deal with multiple molecules, he said.
So his team blasted a type of enzymes called kinases with extremely bright light from the synchrotron to produce 3D images and examine the atoms.
It turns out the enzymes chemically stick a phosphate group on an antibiotic molecule; those few extra atoms mean the antibiotic no longer functions.
The next step is the delicate process of tweaking macrolides so the enzymes can’t recognize them. This will take two to three years, plus clinical trials, Berghuis said.
“The information that we have now makes it 100 times easier to do, if not 1,000 times easier to do, because we know what we should change.”
It’s not all good news. Bacteria could become resistant to even the modified antibiotics in the future, Berghuis said. The drugs must also be used wisely, he noted.
“Antibiotic resistance is a phenomenon that is inherent in the use of antibiotics. But we should be a lot smarter about it in how we develop these antibiotics, already trying to anticipate lots of these problems so that it doesn’t happen.”
We saw something that nobody has seen before.