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A team of researchers from Rutgers University have devised a new antibiotic that killed an array of drug resistant bacteria in-vitro. The drug was extracted from a microbe found in the soil of Italy, and this was found to be a potential alternative to the bacteria, that have developed resistance against Rifampin.

Rifampin is a semisynthetic derivative of Rifamycin with broad antibacterial activity. Rifampin inhibits DNA-dependent RNA polymerase in susceptible bacteria and is often used in combination with other antibiotics for various infections including tuberculosis. It treats other bacterial infections, including Legionnaire’s disease and leprosy.

The novel antibiotic, Pseudouridimycin, prevents bacteria from replicating by blocking the enzyme RNA polymerase, according to a statement provided by the researchers from Rutgers University. This job is done through a dissimilar mechanism than Rifampin, as a result Rifampin-resistant bacteria are not resistant to Pseudouridimycin.

Pseudouridimycin attaches to binding site on RNA polymerase that is normally employed by a nucleoside triphosphate (NTP). NTP is prevented from binding onto the enzyme, depriving it of an important component for RNA synthesis. Since it inhibits a nucleoside, it has a low rate of resistance. These results were published in the Journal Cell.

Richard Ebright, a Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at the University of Rutgers

, in a statement, said that alterations of the NTP binding site that disrupt binding of the new antibiotic also disrupt RNA polymerase activity, resulting in dead bacteria, rather than resistant bacteria.

Furthermore, to killing a wide array of bacteria in a test tube, Pseudouridimycin treated bacterial infections in mice. It is the first drug of its group that targets bacterial RNA polymerase without disturbing the human version of the enzyme.

Ebright explained that it contained a side chain that ‘reaches’ outside the NTP binding site and ‘touches’ an adjacent site that is present in bacterial RNA polymerase but not in human RNA polymerases and, as a result, it binds more tightly to bacterial RNA polymerase than to human RNA polymerases.

Grant Pierce of the University of Manitoba said while the trouble of antibiotic resistance has been the matter concern for quite some time now, no new class of antibiotics has been approved in decades. This is mainly because they have the same target as other drugs to which bacteria are becoming resistant. Pierce’s team is working to block a sodium pump that supplies many bacteria with energy.

A new promising approach is to create an unfamiliar rival for the drug-resistant microbes. Researchers from Rockefeller University developed a hybrid of antibodies and lysins, for example, which affixes to carbohydrates present on bacterial cells and then calls forth an immune response to obliterate the bacteria.

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