Possible new antibiotic found - sorry if this has already been posted...

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Possible new antibiotic found

New class of drugs may help fight resistant germs

WASHINGTON, Oct. 23 — U.S. researchers said Thursday they had

developed a new class of antibiotic that could potentially be

developed into a new drug to fight increasingly drug-resistant

bacteria.

THE COMPOUNDS, known by the experimental name CBR703, act in a unique

way to keep bacteria from reproducing, according to the team at the

University of Wisconsin, Ohio State University and privately held

Cumbre Inc. of Dallas, Texas.

Writing in the journal Science, they said the compounds

inhibit RNA polymerase, the key enzyme used by cells to help genes

express — or to turn their genetic code into a protein that does

something.

Other antibiotics do this, but the new compound does so in a

unique way — offering the possibility that it may work to kill

bacteria that have evolved resistance to existing drugs.

The scientists in the article also outlined what they believe

is the mechanism of action of the compounds — key to designing an

actual drug.

" It's a long way between knowing that something will kill

bacteria and figuring out the exact process by which the bacteria is

killed, " Irina Artsimovitch, an assistant professor of microbiology

at Ohio State University, said in a statement.

" When we find something that inhibits a particular process,

it's easier to make targeted drugs, " Artsimovitch added in a

statement.

" In this case, finding something that inhibited bacterial RNA

polymerase lets us look at the structure of the enzyme and determine

how to improve the inhibitors further to make them more effective. "

Artsimovitch and her colleagues tested CBR703 on E. coli, a

common bacteria used in experiments. E. coli can also take on a toxic

form that causes food poisoning. The compounds killed the E. coli,

but do not affect human cells in the same way — making them potential

drugs.

Doctors and health officials are keen to add new antibiotics

to the armory of weapons used against bacteria. Older antibiotics

such as penicillin do not work against most infections now because

bacteria have evolved ways to resist them.

And because antibiotics are so widely used, more and more

bacteria are becoming resistant to even the newest and strongest

drugs.

For instance, drug-resistant pneumococci cause at least 15,000

cases of meningitis, 150,000 cases of pneumonia, and a million ear

infections every year in the United States alone, according to the

National Foundation for Infectious Diseases.