New bacterial blueprint to combat antibiotic resistance.

A team of scientists from around the globe, including those from Trinity College Dublin, has gained high-res structural insights into a key bacterial enzyme, which may help chemists design new drugs to inhibit it and thus suppress disease-causing bacteria. Their work is important as fears continue to grow around rising rates of antibiotic resistance.

The scientists, led by Martin Caffrey used next-gen X-ray crystallography and single particle cryo-electron microscopy techniques to “look under the bacterial bonnet” and produce a molecular blueprint of the full-length enzyme that may be used to design drugs that attack any structural weaknesses.

Because the enzyme is not found in humans – it only exists in bacteria and helps them build stable cell membranes through which things are transported in and out of cells – it is of huge potential significance as a therapeutic target as any bespoke drug designed to attack it should have fewer side-effects for patients.

Martin Caffrey said: “A number of disease-causing bacteria have developed resistance to a plethora of first-choice drugs used to treat them and, with antimicrobial resistance on the rise in general, the World Health Organization has for some time now advised that a post-antibiotic era, in which minor injuries and common infections could prove fatal, is looming.”

Reference: Science Advances, DOI 10.1126/sciadv.adf5799