A new antibiotic kills pathogens without detectable resistance Losee L. Ling*, T
ID: 267080 • Letter: A
Question
A new antibiotic kills pathogens without detectable resistance Losee L. Ling*, Tanja Schneider2,3*, Aaron J. Peoples1, Amy L. Spoering1, Ina Engels2.3, Brian P. Conlon4, Anna Mueller2.3, Till F. Schäberle3,5, Dallas E. Hughes!, Slava Epstein6, Michael Jones7, Linos Lazarides7, Victoria A. Steadman7, Douglas R. Cohen-, Cintia R. Felix1, K. Ashley Fetterman1, William P. Millettl, Anthony G. Nittil, Ashley M. Zullo-, Chao Chen4 & Kim Lewis4 Antibiotic resistance is spreading faster than the introduction of new compounds into clinical practice, causing a public health crisis. Most antibiotics were produced by screening soil microorganisms, but this limited resource of cultivable bacteria was overmined by the 1960s. Synthetic approaches to produce antibiotics have been unable to replace this platform. Uncultured bacteria make up approximately 99% of all species in external environments, and are an untapped source of new antibiotics. We developed several methods to grow uncultured organisms by cultivation in situ or by using specific growth factors. Here we report a new antibiotic that we term teixobactin, discovered in a screen of uncultured bacteria. Teixobactin inhibits cell wall synthesis by binding to a highly conserved motif of lipid II (precursor of peptidoglycan) and lipid III (precursor of cell wall teichoic acid). We did not obtain any mutants of Staphylococcus aureus or Mycobacterium tuberculosis resistant to teixobactin. The properties of this compound suggest a path towards developing antibiotics that are likely to avoid development of resistance.Explanation / Answer
Answer.
The Figure 2 shows the effect of various antibiotics tested on S.aureus bacteria. In Fig.2a there is not much effect of any of the antibiotics on Colony forming units (one bacterial cell forming a mass of cells is called colony). This is due to the fact that cells are in the early exponential phase and cella are not dividing rapidly So the effect of antibiotics is almost same.In Fig. 2b the effect of individual antibiotics is more prominent. At this stage the cella are growing rapidly and effect of antibiotics is clearly seen. Oxacillin and vancomycin show same effect upto 4 hrs of growth while teixobactin has more killing effect than both of these till 4 hrs. From 4-8 hrs there is rapid decrease in CFU for oxocilin and teixobactin, being more sharp for oxacillin but not as per CFU (greater in case of teixobactin). From 8-16 hrs both show similar trend of action and taill off till 20 hrs. The antibiotic vancomycin does not show prominent effect after 8 hrs after which we observe a less decline in CFU than either oxacilin or teixobactin.
From the data it looks both antibiotics namely, oxacillin and teixobactin acting with same potency and nothing seems to be novel in this study.
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