A team of international researchers discovered a new class of antibiotics in parasitic nematode worms, according to a study published in the journal Molecular Cell.
The new antibiotic class is called odilorhabdins. Researchers discovered the antibiotics while screening 80 cultured strains of bacteria found in soil-dwelling nematode worms that colonize insects for food. The bacteria kill host insects and dispense an antibiotic to eliminate competing bacteria.
The researchers isolated active compounds of the antibiotic from the cultured strains and then created more potent synthetic derivatives. These synthetic compounds displayed high levels of efficacy against bacterial infection in mice, including infections with carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriacae.
"When odilorhabdins are introduced to the bacterial cells, they impact the reading ability of the ribosome and cause the ribosome to make mistakes when it creates new proteins," said Alexander Mankin, PhD, director of the Center for Biomolecular Sciences in the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Pharmacy. "This miscoding corrupts the cell with flawed proteins and causes the bacterial cell to die. The bactericidal mechanism of ODLs and the fact that they bind to a site on the ribosome not exploited by any known antibiotic are very strong indicators that ODLs have the potential to treat infections that are unresponsive to other antibiotics."
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