STUNNING DISCOVERY MECHANISMS THAT ALLOW BACTERIA TO PROTECT THEMSELVES AGAINST ANTIBIOTICS

Researchers at the University of Birmingham have identified supplementary mechanisms used by bacteria to resist infection-feat antibiotics. Antibiotic resistance happens subsequently bacteria progress mechanisms to withstand the drugs which are used to treat infections. The team of experts at the Universitys Institute of Microbiology and Infection focused their research regarding E. coli, which can cause urinary and blood stream infections.

Using novel experimental approaches, involving collective genome DNA sequencing never upfront applied in this place of research, the team identified mechanisms or strategies that bacteria use to protect themselves from antibiotics.

Senior author Professor David Grainger said: We investigated a gene found in bacteria that is operational in resistance to merged antibiotics.

Although we have known nearly this gene for many decades, the nitty-gritty of how it provides resistance to antibiotics has been hard to pick apart.

Our research identified since unspecified roles for this gene in controlling processes that meet the expense of drug resistance.

We found two highly terse mechanisms that bacteria use to guard themselves from antibiotics. One protected their DNA from the harmful effects of fluoroquinolone antibiotics, and the extra prevented doxycyline getting inside bacteria.

Dr Prateek Sharma, who did much of the experimental doing, adds: The resistance mechanisms that we identified are found in many every second species of bacteria consequently, our research could guide to the discovery of molecules that could be developed into appendage drugs that can treat bacterial infections.

The psychotherapy, published in Nature Communications, was the outcome of a decade-long research project carried out by the University. Co-author Professor Laura Piddock concludes: Antibiotics underpin avant-garde medical, veterinary and crop growing practices world-broad. However, the efficacy of antibiotics is decreasing as more bacteria become resistant.

Research such as ours that provides greater join up of drug resistance mechanisms is necessary if we are to address the global crisis of antibiotic resistance.