Teixobactin is a newly discovered antibiotic that
eliminates pathogens without encountering any
detectable resistance, a finding that challenges
long held scientific beliefs and holds great promise
for treating chronic infections like tuberculosis
and those caused by MRSA.
Staphylococcus aureus
"Northeastern researchers’ pioneering work to
develop a novel method for growing uncultured
bacteria led to the discovery of the antibiotic,
called teixobactin, and Lewis’ lab played a key role
in analyzing and testing the compound for resistance
from pathogens. Professor Kim Lewis, who is the
paper’s lead author, said this marks the first
discovery of an antibiotic to which resistance by
mutations of pathogens have not been identified.
Lewis and Northeastern biology professor Slava
Epstein co-authored the paper with colleagues from
the University of Bonn in Germany, NovoBiotic
Pharmaceuticals in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and
Selcia Limited in the United Kingdom.
The research team says teixobactin’s discovery
presents a promising new opportunity to treat
chronic infections caused by staphylococcus aureus,
or MSRA, that are highly resistant to antibiotics,
as well as tuberculosis, which involves a
combination of therapies with negative side effects.
The screening of soil microorganisms has produced
most antibiotics, but only 1 percent of them will
grow in the lab, and this limited resource was
overmined in the 1960s, Lewis explained.
He and Epstein spent years seeking to address this
problem by tapping into a new source of antibiotics
beyond those created by synthetic means: uncultured
bacteria, which make up 99 percent of all species in
external environments.
They developed a novel method for growing uncultured
bacteria in their natural environment, which led to
the founding of NovoBiotic. Their approach involves
the iChip, a miniature device Epstein’s team created
that can isolate and help grow single cells in their
natural environment and thereby provides researchers
with much improved access to uncultured bacteria.
NovoBiotic has since assembled about 50,000 strains
of uncultured bacteria and discovered 25 new
antibiotics, of which teixobactin is the latest and
most interesting, Lewis said.
The antibiotic was discovered during a routine
screening for antimicrobial material using this
method. Lewis then tested the compound for
resistance development and did not find mutant MSRA
or Mycobacterium tuberculosis resistant to
teixobactin, which was found to block several
different targets in the cell wall synthesis pathway.
Gerard Wright, a professor in the Department of
Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences at McMaster
University and who was not involved in this
research, examined the team’s work in a separate
article for Nature published in concert with the new
research paper. In his article, Wright noted that
while it remains to be seen whether other mechanisms
for resistance against teixobactin exist in the
environment, the team’s work could lead to
identifying “other ‘resistance-light’ antibiotics.”
In 2013, Lewis revealed groundbreaking research in a
separate paper published by Nature that presented a
novel approach to treat and eliminate MRSA, the
“superbug” that infects 1 million Americans annually.
Lewis and his team discovered a way to destroy the
dormant persister cells, which are key to the
success of chronic infections caused by MRSA.
The research was published Wednesday in the journal
Nature.
For more information
Nature
A new antibiotic kills pathogens without detectable
resistance
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature14098.html
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