This is really good news...

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From CF news around the world!!!!

Looks very good......

Agence France Presse

November 19, 2003 Wednesday

HEADLINE: Mutant clue opens up new front against cystic fibrosis

   Experts believe they have found a molecular chunk in the

crippling lung

disease known as cystic fibrosis, the British journal Nature reports

on

Thursday.

   An inherited disease, cystic fibrosis is a disorder in which

the

lungs become

clogged with a thick, gluey mucus inhabited by a bacterium,

Pseudomonas

aeruginosa.

   Infections by P. aeruginosa are the leading cause of death from

cystic

fibrosis, and patients with this disease usually have a life

expectancy

of just

20 to 30 years.

   One reason for this is that antibiotics often cannot attack the

bug, because

it is cocooned in a sugary " biofilm " in the lungs.

   Protected this way, the bacterium can be up to a thousand times

more

difficult to kill than pathogens that are free-living.

   Researchers led by O'Toole at Dartmouth Medical School,

New Hampshire,

believe they may have found a way into this armour.

   They examined a newly-isolated mutant strain of P. aeruginosa

and

found it

produces a sugary protein called a periplasmic glucan that

specifically

binds to

tobramycin, a frontline antibiotic in cystic fibrosis.

   Like a sticky shield, the glucan latches onto the antimicrobial

agent,

holding it within the biofilm to prevent it from getting to its

target.

   The discovery should open up new ways of attacking P.

aeruginosa,

using a

" co-therapeutic approach " in which one drug deactivates the glucan to

let the

antibiotic reach the bacterium unhindered, O'Toole's team suggests.

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