MRSA Notes

Researchers are working hard to find new ways to fight MRSA and other resistant bacteria, and one of the ways they are doing it beyond just finding new chemicals that kill it and not you is by finding new and inventive ways to kill the bacteria. Merck is currently working on such a drug (From ScienceNOW):

Many antibiotics on the market today work in similar ways: They either paralyze the microbe’s ability to build a protective cell wall or prevent the bugs from synthesizing proteins or DNA. These related modes of action mean that microbes that become resistant to one antibiotic often withstand many others as well. The new compound, discovered by a team led by Sheo Singh at Merck Research Laboratories in Rahway, New Jersey, aims for an unusual target: bacterial fatty acid synthesis. Because several enzymes involved in this pathway are highly conserved among pathogenic bacteria, antibiotics directed at them would have the added advantage of attacking a broad range of microbes.The team’s candidate is derived from a fungus called Streptomyces platensis that was recovered from a South African soil sample–one of 83,000 natural extracts screened for antibiotic activity. Dubbed platensimycin, the compound was found to be a potent inhibitor of a whole range of so-called Gram-positive bacteria, including several of the “superbugs” plaguing hospitals, such as Staphylococcus strains resistant to every known antibiotic except vancomycin (ScienceNOW, 14 March 2002). In a mouse model of S. aureus infection, platensimycin wiped out the bacteria efficiently and without apparent toxic side-effects. Structural studies revealed how the drug acts, by binding to FabF, a crucial enzyme in the fatty acid pathway.