American researchers have modified an antibiotic, discovered in 1956, which could make it possible to fight against certain resistant bacteria.
The threat of antibiotic resistance may well have receded by a few years. It should be remembered that antibiotic resistance, one of the most serious threats to global health, is due to the ability of bacteria to evolve to become resistant to antibiotics. This is the case, for example, with Staphylococcus aureus. Antibiotic resistance is estimated to be responsible for 25,000 deaths per year in Europe.
This is why this discovery, the results of which have been published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences May 30, 2017, is excellent news: researchers at the Scripps Research Institute (United States) have developed an “improved” version of vancomycin, an antibiotic discovered in 1956 that is effective against staphylococci, streptococci and enterococci .
This “3.0” antibiotic is even 1,000 times more effective than the original version, according to Dale Boger of the Department of Chemistry at the Scripps Research Institute, which led the research. It attacks resistant enterococci, bacteria that caused around 2,000 cases of nosocomial infections from 2005 to 201, in France, according to the InVS.
Three independent mechanisms of action
This new version of vancomycin now has three independent mechanisms of action. First of all, the scientists succeeded in countering the mechanism developed by enterococci to prevent vancomycin from “attaching” to the bacteria and destroying it. This first step restored its initial effectiveness to the molecule. The researchers then chemically altered the structure of the molecule in two different places, giving it two new “weapons” to pierce the walls of bacteria and prevent them from reproducing.
“This increases the durability of the antibiotic,” says Dale Boger, lead author of the study, in a statement. “The bacteria cannot find a way to bypass these 3 mechanisms at the same time. Even if it finds a solution for one of them, it will still be destroyed by the other 2 ”. Doctors would therefore need to use less antibiotics to treat their patient with antibiotic resistant bacteria.
“Supervancomycin”, which has so far only been tested on cells in the laboratory, will then be tested on animals, then on humans to assess its efficacy and safety.
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