New drug candidate fights off more than 300 drug-resistant bacteria

Infections of the urinary tract are more difficult to treat because they are becoming resistant to antibiotics. The molecule that was reported in the Central Science of the American Chemical Society was used in lab experiments and in mice with infections. The compound could be used to treat challenging infections in humans.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, millions of people around the world are affected by gram-negative infections. Tough cell walls that keep most antibiotics out and pumps that efficiently remove those antibiotics are some of the things that make thesebacteria hard to treat. Multiple drugs can be evaded by the microbe. Treatments that do work are not very specific and eradicate many types ofbacteria. Paul Hergenrother and his colleagues wanted to design a drug that could be used to treat infections while leaving other beneficial organisms intact.

The team made a number of structural modifications to the antibiotic that they believed would allow it to act against gram-negative strains. One of the modified compounds, dubbed Fabimycin, proved potent against more than 300 drug-resistant clinical isolates, while remaining relatively inactive towards certain gram-positive pathogens. The new molecule reduced the amount of drug-resistantbacteria in mice with pneumonia or urinary tract infections to levels that were1-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-6556 is1-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-6556

According to the researchers, the results show that Fabimycin could be an effective treatment for infections.

More information: An Iterative Approach Guides Discovery of the FabI Inhibitor Fabimycin, a Late-Stage Antibiotic Candidate with In Vivo Efficacy against Drug-Resistant Gram-Negative Infections, ACS Central Science (2022). DOI: 10.1021/acscentsci.2c00598 Journal information: ACS Central Science Citation: New drug candidate fights off more than 300 drug-resistant bacteria (2022, August 10) retrieved 10 August 2022 from https://phys.org/news/2022-08-drug-candidate-drug-resistant-bacteria.html This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.