A study of the effectivness of synthetic main-chain cationic polyimidazolium molecules as broad-spectrum antibiotics finds that derivative compounds exhibited effective antimicrobial effects with low toxicity, and that the Gram-negative pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa was unable to evolve strains resistant to polyimidazolium, suggesting that this class of molecules may be candidates for drug development to combat antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
Article #20-11024: "Designer broad-spectrum polyimidazolium antibiotics," by Wenbin Zhong, Zhenyu Shi, et al.
MEDIA CONTACT: E. Peter Greenberg, University of Washington, Seattle, WA; e-mail: epgreen@uw.edu
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences