The
decade-long inactivity of the pharmaceutical industry in the less lucrative
antibiotic development has given the pathogens time to develop resistance to
common antibiotics. As more and more hospital infections with resistant germs
are reported, the discovery of new substance classes has become a public health
priority, which has been the focus of the "Berlin Conference on Life
Sciences" for three years now.
A
success has now been reported by Berlin-based scientists. The mechanism of
action of the new antibiotic from the lipolanthine class is still unknown. The
team around Prof. Dr. med. Roderich Süssmuth of the TU Berlin and the French
Deinove S.A. (Deinobiotics SAS), who isolated microvionin from Microbacterium
arborescens by means of an activity screen against MRSA (min. Inhibitory
concentration / MIC <0.46 μg / mL) and S. pneumoniae (MIC: (<0.15 μg /
mL), suspect that the unusual patented antimirobial peptide blocked cell wall
synthesis of Gram-positive pathogens (Nature Chemical Biology).
In
addition to the amino acids lanthionine and labionin, which are characteristic
of lipolanthines, microvionin also displays a new building block: triamino-dicarboxylic
acid, or avionin, as well as an unusual double-methylated guanidino fatty acid.
Süssmuth's team isolated a second member of the lipolanthines they called
nocavionin, the actinomycete Nocardia altamirensis. In addition to structure
elucidation and analysis of the mechanism of action, the scientists want to
further develop the new lead structure preclinically.
Posted by Dr. Tim Sandle
