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Researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago and Nosopharm, a biotechnology company based in Lyon, France, are part of an international team reporting on the discovery of a new class of antibiotics. The antibiotic is unique, its unconventional source and its distinct way of killing bacteria may be effective at treating drug-resistant bacterial infections.
Odilorhabdins ODLs-the antibiotics are produced by symbiotic bacteria found in soil-dwelling nematode worms that colonize insects for food. The bacteria killed the insect and secrete the antibiotic to keep competing with the bacteria. Researchers screened 80 cultured strains of the bacteria for antimicrobial activity, isolated the active compounds, studied their chemical structures and engineered more potent derivatives. They found that ODLs act on the ribosome -the molecular machine of individual cells that makes the proteins it needs to function.
ODLs work by targeting the ribosome, they are unique because they bind to a place on the ribosome that has never been used by other known antibiotics. When bound to the ribosome, the antibiotic disrupts its ability to interpret and translate genetic code, when ODLs are introduced to the bacterial cells, they impact the reading ability of the ribosome and cause the ribosome to make mistakes when it creates new proteins. This miscoding corrupts the cell with flawed proteins and causes the bacterial cell to die.
The bactericidal mechanism of ODLs and the fact that they bind to a site on the ribosome not exploited by any known antibiotic are very strong indicators that ODLs have the potential to treat infections that are unresponsive to other antibiotics. ODL compounds cured mice infected with several pathogenic bacteria and demonstrated activity against both Gram-negative and Gram-positive pathogens, notably including carbapenem-resistant. Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriacae CRE, are a family of germs that have high levels of resistance to antibiotics.
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