The magic antibiotic
Wonder drug attacks bacteria in three ways to kill resistant strain
SCIENTISTS have beefed up a wonder drug to combat the threat of antibiotic-resistant infections.
Vancomycin has been prescribed for 60 years and been dubbed “magical” because it is so effective.
But bacteria have been becoming resistant to the veteran drug and other antibiotics – creating a major threat to world health.
Now researchers at The Scripps Research Institute in the US have modified Vancomycin so it works in three ways on bacteria.
This makes it much harder for bugs to develop resistance. Combined with previous alterations, the latest modification gives it a 1,000-fold increase in activity, which will allow doctors to use less. Dale Boger, of TSRI’s Department of Chemistry, said Vancomycin has become the first antibiotic with three independent “mechanisms of action”. He explained: “Organisms just can’t simultaneously work to find a way around three. Even if they found a solution to one, the organisms would still be killed by the other two.”
He added: “This increases the durability of this antibiotic.”
The World Health Organisation warns antibiotic resistance is one of the biggest threats to global health, food security and development as major diseases become harder to treat.
The length of time it has taken for bacteria to become resistant to Vancomycin suggests bacteria have had a hard time overcoming the way the
Previously the team showed it was possible to add two modifications to Vancomycin to make it even more potent. original drug worked which is by disrupting how bacteria form cell walls.
The new study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reveals another modification which interferes with bacteria cell walls in a different way. The re-engineered Vancomycin was tested on Enterococci bacteria.
To the delight of researchers it killed both Vancomycin-resistant Enterococci – considered by the WHO to be one of the drug-resistant bacteria that pose the greatest threat to human health – and the original forms of Enterococci.