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Scientists up the ante in war against "superbugs"
August 30, 2001Scientists have discovered a weakness in tuberculosis-causing "superbugs" which could help doctors fight the emergence of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, says Dr Jim Naismith speaking at the BA Festival of Science at the University of Glasgow today [3rd Spetember 2001].
Tuberculosis (TB) affects more than 50 million people worldwide. Just like normal TB, multi-drug resistant TB is a disease of the respiratory system - but is resistant to many of the medicines that doctors use to treat the disease. In the UK, multi-drug resistant TB is becoming a significant problem, especially in Intensive Care Units where the most vulnerable are treated.
Dr Naismith and colleagues have worked out how bacteria that cause this type of tuberculosis produce two of the essential sugars they need to survive. By targeting new antibiotics that cut off some of the sugar producing enzymes in the bacteria, they hope to be able to counter the growing threat of these superbugs.
"Bacterial infection has re-emerged as a serious health problem around the world, particularly because of the rise in pathogens that are resistant to conventional antibiotics," says Dr Naismith. "In the UK, multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, which is very hard to treat with current medicines, is emerging as a major health problem. In many developing countries, drug tolerant bacteria are endemic."
The science carried out by the research team involves determining the full three-dimensional structure of enzyme molecules that make sugars in the bacterial cell. This requires a great deal of painstaking experimental work but at the end produces a three dimensional model of the protein - magnifying the protein structure 100 million times. This allows the researchers to see exactly how the protein works and, more importantly, to see how they can stop it from working.
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC)
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