Scientists
from Trinity College Dublin have discovered that two very different species of
bacteria have evolved distinct, powerful antibiotic arsenals for use in the war
against their bacterial neighbours.
Failure to develop
effective antibiotics
that counter resistance to current drugs will have disastrous consequences. It
is estimated that by mid-century, just 30 years from now, antimicrobial
resistance will result in a global death rate of up to 10 million per year. By
2030, the World Bank puts the cost of resistance at US$3.4 trillion in global
gross domestic product. The need for new and effective therapeutics is
immediate and immense.
The
hope is that the basic research into the workings of an enzyme involved in
bacterial coat synthesis reported in this article will contribute to the
development of these urgently needed medicines.
While
it is important from a purely scientific perspective to understand how nature
crafts and moulds at the molecular level, as illustrated in this work, the
scientists findings have the added benefit of providing drug designers chemical
blueprints -- or pharmacaphores, which explain how a molecular structure lends
itself to a specific action, such as an antibiotic effect -- which are known to
work for bacteria in the real world.
These
blueprints can now be used to guide pharmaceutical chemists when they design
new, more effective drugs that are urgently needed in light of the accelerating
global threat of antimicrobial resistance.
See:
Posted by Dr. Tim Sandle, Pharmaceutical Microbiology Resources (http://www.pharmamicroresources.com/)
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