• HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
Thursday, August 28, 2025
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News Chemistry

How bacterial evolution of antibiotic arsenals is providing new drug blueprints

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
January 9, 2020
in Chemistry
Reading Time: 3 mins read
0
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram

IMAGE

Credit: Martin Caffrey, Trinity College Dublin.

Scientists from Trinity College Dublin have discovered that two very different species of bacteria have evolved distinct, powerful antibiotic arsenals for use in the war against their bacterial neighbours [Thursday 9th January, 2020]. By blueprinting precisely how the antibiotics function against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), the scientists have provided new options for drug designers seeking to hold back the global threat that antimicrobial resistance poses humanity.

Failure to develop effective antibiotics that counter resistance to current drugs will have disastrous consequences. It is estimated that by mid-century, just 30 years from now, antimicrobial resistance will result in a global death rate of up to 10 million per year. By 2030, the World Bank puts the cost of resistance at US$3.4 trillion in global gross domestic product. The need for new and effective therapeutics is immediate and immense.

There’s more than one way to skin a cat. So the proverb goes, suggesting the same end can be achieved in different ways. And in the research, just published in leading international journal, Nature Communications, the Trinity scientists outline a fascinating example of this happening in nature. In this case, natural selection has delivered two very different answers to the same problem – ultimately enabling successful competition in bacterial warfare.

The hope is that the basic research into the workings of an enzyme involved in bacterial coat synthesis reported in this article will contribute to the development of these urgently needed medicines.

Professor Martin Caffrey, Fellow Emeritus in Trinity’s School of Biochemistry and Immunology, is the senior author of the research article. He said:

“Specifically, we have discovered how evolution has led two completely different types of bacteria to figure out a way of making two very different antibiotics with which to fend off bacterial neighbours in precisely the same way. This is an exquisite example of molecular convergent evolution.”

“While the two antibiotics are chemically distinct – one is a cyclic depsipeptide (globomycin), and the other a macrocyclic lactone (myxovirescin) – remarkably they achieve the very same end of shutting down the production of key components of the cell envelope in other bacteria. This weapon thereby kills or weakens the other bacteria.”

How does this help drug designers?

While it is important from a purely scientific perspective to understand how nature crafts and moulds at the molecular level, as illustrated in this work, the scientists findings have the added benefit of providing drug designers chemical blueprints – or pharmacaphores, which explain how a molecular structure lends itself to a specific action, such as an antibiotic effect – which are known to work for bacteria in the real world.

These blueprints can now be used to guide pharmaceutical chemists when they design new, more effective drugs that are urgently needed in light of the accelerating global threat of antimicrobial resistance.

Professor Caffrey added:

“Scientists have recently devoted a lot of effort to tackling open, ‘undruggable’ targets – many of which lack the defined binding pockets where drugs can interact specifically to achieve the desired outcome. The bacterial cell wall target that takes centre stage in our work likewise has an open binding surface but in its case nature has figured out at least two ways of targeting it with very high affinity using the natural antibiotics, globomycin and myxovirescin. And they do so in ways that are, at once, similar and distinct.”

###

Media Contact
Thomas Deane
[email protected]
353-189-64685

Related Journal Article

http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-13724-y

Tags: BiochemistryCell BiologyEvolutionMedicine/HealthMicrobiologyPharmaceutical ChemistryPharmaceutical SciencePharmaceutical Sciences
Share12Tweet8Share2ShareShareShare2

Related Posts

Wayne State Study Advances Quality of Life for Individuals with Type 1 Diabetes

Wayne State Study Advances Quality of Life for Individuals with Type 1 Diabetes

August 27, 2025
Wayne State Researchers Pioneer Advances to Enhance Quality of Life for Individuals with Type 1 Diabetes

Wayne State Researchers Pioneer Advances to Enhance Quality of Life for Individuals with Type 1 Diabetes

August 27, 2025

Electrostatic Map Reveals Non-Covalent Metal–Organic Frameworks

August 27, 2025

Widespread Metal, Extraordinary Potential Unveiled

August 27, 2025
Please login to join discussion

POPULAR NEWS

  • blank

    Breakthrough in Computer Hardware Advances Solves Complex Optimization Challenges

    149 shares
    Share 60 Tweet 37
  • Molecules in Focus: Capturing the Timeless Dance of Particles

    142 shares
    Share 57 Tweet 36
  • New Drug Formulation Transforms Intravenous Treatments into Rapid Injections

    115 shares
    Share 46 Tweet 29
  • Neuropsychiatric Risks Linked to COVID-19 Revealed

    82 shares
    Share 33 Tweet 21

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Recent News

Evaluating Web Video Support for Cardiac Patients

Amygdala Noise Boosts Exploration During Threat

AI Unveils IVIG-Resistant Kawasaki Disease in Shandong

  • Contact Us

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.