New research, published in ACS Central Science, indicates that the drug candidate molecule Fabimycin is capable of fighting more than 300 drug-resistant bacteria in laboratory experiments, was also tested in mice with pneumonia and urinary tract infections, and is believed to work in the near future to treat infections in humans.
Fabimycin acts on gram-negative bacteria that cause pathologies such as pneumonia, urinary tract infections and bloodstream infections. These bacteria are particularly difficult to treat and affect millions of people worldwide, unlike gram-positive bacteria that tend to cause less disease, especially in people with healthy immune systems.
Gram-negative bacteria have strong defense systems that include resistant cell walls that keep out most antibiotics (and protect them from being attacked by white blood cells) and pumps that efficiently eliminate incoming antibiotics, and can mutate to evade multiple drugs. Moreover, the treatments that work are not very specific and eradicate many types of bacteria, including those that are beneficial.
Cell wall comparison of gram-negative and gram-positive cells.
Paul Hergenrother and colleagues set out to design a drug that could infiltrate the defenses of gram-negative bacteria and treat infections, while leaving other beneficial microbes intact. To do this, the team started with an existing antibiotic that works against gram-positive bacteria and made structural modifications on that basis.
Several versions were created, one of which they named Fabimicin was shown to act against gram-negative bacteria including more than 300 species of antibiotic-resistant bacteria without affecting gram-positive bacteria and bacteria that are harmless or beneficial to the human body.
These tests were performed on mice and bacterial cultures, but no human trials have been performed yet, but it is expected that this will change soon and that Fabimycin can be used to treat resistant gram-negative bacterial infections that are estimated to kill more than 5 million people by 2022 (more than cancer and AIDS combined).
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