Showing posts with label new class of antibiotics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label new class of antibiotics. Show all posts

Thursday, January 21, 2016

Innovative compound with anti-MRSA qualities may help develop new class of antibiotics

Image for unlabelled figure

With global health services increasingly worried about the rise of antibiotic resistant diseases, researchers at Maynooth University have discovered a compound whose anti-MRSA qualities pave the way for the development of a new class of antibiotics. The new research is published today in the internationally renowned journalBioorganic and Medicinal Chemistry Letters. The findings mark the culmination of three years of work on the part of the team led by Dr John Stephens, Maynooth University Department of Chemistry, in collaboration with Dr Kevin Kavanagh, Maynooth University Department of Biology.

According to recent studies, on any given day one in 18 hospitalised patients are suffering from healthcare associated infections, with MRSA and E. coli responsible for 64% of cases. Doctors struggling with these infections are confronted with the increased prevalence of antibiotic resistant strains, but this represents only part of the problem. Of the antibiotics used today, almost all of them belong to classes discovered before the 1980s and this research was motivated by the urgent need to identify and synthesise new antibiotic classes.

Commenting on this discovery, Dr John Stephens observes:
As today’s infections develop increasing resistance to the antibiotics of the past, there is an urgent need for researchers to develop new therapeutics. Without this action, we are seriously at risk of entering a post-antibiotic world where common and traditionally minor infections could once again prove fatal. Discovering the antibacterial properties of our lead compound, the highly active quinoline thiourea, at Maynooth University is a significant first step. With further research and development, it has the potential to pave the way for a new class of antibiotic.
Ref : http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960894X15302663

Thursday, July 11, 2013

Novel chemistry for new class of antibiotic

 The potential new antibiotic targets a bacterial enzyme critical to metabolic processes. The compound is a protein inhibitor which binds to the enzyme (called biotin protein ligase), stopping its action and interrupting the life cycle of the bacteria.

"Existing antibiotics target the bacterial cell membranes but this potential new antibiotic operates in a completel"

Ref : http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2013/sc/c3sc51127h

A ‘leaky mutant’ (SaBPL-R122G) of Staphylococcus aureus biotin protein ligase (SaBPL) is used to enhance the turnover rate for the reaction of biotin alkyne with an azide to give a triazole. This allows the enzyme to select the optimum triazole-based inhibitor using a library of such azides in a single experiment with greatly improved efficiency and sensitivity of detection, difficulties that can restrict the general utility of a multi-component in situ click approach to ligand optimisation...


Novel chemistry for new class of antibiotic