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Scientists from Rutgers University-New Brunswick, the biotechnology company NAICONS Srl., and elsewhere have discovered a new antibiotic effective against drug-resistant bacteria: pseudouridimycin. The new antibiotic is produced by a microbe found in a soil sample collected in Italy and was discovered by screening microbes from soil samples. The new antibiotic kills a broad spectrum of drug-sensitive and drug-resistant bacteria in a test tube and cures bacterial infections in mice.
In a paper published in Cell today, the researchers report the discovery and the new antibiotic's mechanism of action.
Pseudouridimycin inhibits bacterial RNA polymerase, the enzyme responsible for bacterial RNA synthesis, through a binding site and mechanism that differ from those of rifampin, a currently used antibacterial drug that inhibits the enzyme. Because pseudouridimycin inhibits through a different binding site and mechanism than rifampin, pseudouridimycin exhibits no cross-resistance with rifampin, functions additively when co-administered by rifampin and, most important, has a spontaneous resistance rate that is just one-tenth the spontaneous resistance rate of rifampin.
Source: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/06/170615142842.htm
Journal reference: Sonia I. Maffioli, et. al. Antibacterial Nucleoside-Analog Inhibitor of Bacterial RNA Polymerase. Cell, 2017; 169 (7): 1240 DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2017.05.042
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @11:36PM (2 children)
Maybe there is something to the urge that many kids have to eat some dirt?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 17 2017, @12:58AM (1 child)
I would not be surprised if the itch of teething was behind that.
However, I remain convinced that all this concern over sanitation is overblown, and likely causing more harm than good for the same reason the anti-vaxxers are diluting "herd resistance" by introducing susceptible elements. I believe I was designed for the environment I am in, and that includes a bit of dirt now and then. The fastidious hand-washing seems more for social diseases, which spread through contact. And we do seem to have a thing for spreading stuff via the social protocol of hand-shaking and mutually handling various items. ( like at the gas pump, or cash ).
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday June 17 2017, @10:38AM
Which is why it's a good idea to clean your hands after dealing with pathogen exchanges like keypads, gas pumps, door knobs and handshaking. And another cleaning before handling food.