New Beta Lactams Help Kill Drug Resistant Bacteria

New Beta Lactams Help Kill Drug Resistant Bacteria
Mar-10-2016 0 comments Cube Biosystems
TMerck researchers have identified nonantibiotic adjuvants termed tarocins that restore the killing activity of beta-lactams against methicillin-resistant staphylococci, thereby enabling the application of beta-lactams to treat Gram-positive bacterial infections.
Vancomycin resistant Staph aureus (Source: Wikipedia)

From:
S. H. Lee et al. TarO-specific inhibitors of wall teichoic acid biosynthesis restore -lactam efficacy against methicillin-resistant staphylococci, Science Translational Medicine (2016). DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.aad7364

Coupled with the crisis in antibiotic drug resistance is a dearth of mechanistically new classes of antibacterial agents. One possible solution to this problem is to improve the efficacy of existing antibiotics against otherwise resistant bacteria using a combination agent approach. Lee et al. now describe just such a combination agent strategy to resuscitate the efficacy of ß-lactam antibiotics. They identify nonantibiotic adjuvants termed tarocins that restore the killing activity of ß-lactams against methicillin-resistant staphylococci, thereby enabling the application of ß-lactams to treat Gram-positive bacterial infections.
 


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