Study exposes how bacteria resist antibiotics

3:08 AM // 0 comments // ngsk // Category: News , Science //

Antibiotics are used to cure the disease caused. There are vast numbers of antibiotics for different diseases caused, but sometimes we might be hearing that the bacteria or virus may get resistance to the antibiotic used so a new antibiotic is to be developed to cure a particular disease. But now there is no need to develop new antibiotics which is a huge hurdle, associated with great cost and countless safety issues.

Scientists have discovered how bacteria get resistance to wide range of Antibiotics.

Researchers at New York University said that bacteria produce certain nitric oxide-producing enzymes to resist Antibiotics, by blocking this defense mechanism could give existing Antibiotics more power to fight dangerous infections.

Drugs that inhibit these enzymes can make Antibiotics much more potent, making even deadly superbugs like Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus or MRSA succumb, they said.
Drug-resistant bacteria such as MRSA are a growing problem in hospitals worldwide, killing about 19,000 people a year in the United States.

"Here, we have a short cut, where we don't have to invent new Antibiotics. Instead, we can enhance the activity of well-established ones, making them more effective at lower doses," was the statement given by Evgeny Nudler of NYU Langone Medical Center, whose study appears in the journal Science.

Nudler's team found that many Antibiotics kill bacteria through the production of harmful charged particles known as reactive oxygen species, otherwise called oxidative stress.

"Antibiotics cause bacteria to produce a lot of reactive oxygen species. Those damage DNA, and bacteria cannot survive. They eventually die". "We found nitric oxide can protect bacteria against oxidative stress." Nudler said in a telephone interview.
-courtesy: Zeenews

Bacteria produce nitric oxide to resist Antibiotics. The defense mechanism appears to apply broadly too many different types of Antibiotics. Many companies are testing various nitric oxide-lowering compounds called nitric oxide synthase inhibitors to use as anti-inflammatory drugs.

He thinks a compound in this class could be made to reduce the amount of nitric oxide bacteria can produce, reducing their ability to resist Antibiotics. That would mean researchers would not need to discover new Antibiotics.