Approximately half of the world’s population is infected with Helicobacter pylori, the bacterium that causes peptic ulcers and some forms of stomach cancer. Although ‘triple therapy’ with a proton pump inhibitor and two antibiotics – selected from a very limited…
Blog Archives
Never Mind the Colour – New Coating Kills MRSA on Contact
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections are a particular problem in hospitals and other healthcare environments. MRSA can survive on normal surfaces and fabrics but researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have now developed a coating that kills MRSA on contact. The…
Novel Strategy to Fight TB
The bacterium responsible for tuberculosis (TB), mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), is notoriously difficult to kill. The most commonly used antibiotics, rifampicin and isoniazid, need to be used for extended periods of time (typically 6-24 months) to effectively eliminate infection. In addition,…
Targeting Lipoprotein-Targeting
Multidrug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria are a particular problem in both hospital and community settings and treatment is rendered more difficult by low intrinsic permeability to antibacterial compounds and by the presence of multidrug efflux pumps. The small number of molecular targets…
NO Place to Hide for Bacteria with Synthase Inhibitors
Since the late 1980s, when nitric oxide (NO) was first shown to play a physiological role in mammals, this small molecule has been found to be a key mediator of an extraordinary variety of biological processes including blood pressure regulation,…
Nanoparticles Effective against Brain Infection
Brain infections such as bacterial meningitis and encephalitis can cause death or serious disability and are difficult to treat with conventional antibiotics because of poor CNS-penetration and bacterial drug-resistance. Small cationic antimicrobial peptides form an important part of the host…
Targeting Bacterial Protein Degradation
Although the ubiquitination pathway in eukaryotes was characterised in the early 1980s, it has only recently been recognised that bacteria also tag proteins to determine their fate. Ubiquitination controls a variety of cellular processes, but one of its major roles…
Targeting the Riboswitch
Recent research has shown that gene expression can be regulated at the level of mRNA by riboswitches. A riboswitch is an aptamer region on an mRNA molecule that can specifically bind a small effector molecule, causing changes in the structure…
Evidence that FASII is Dispensable
Whereas mammalian fatty acid synthase (FASI) is a multidomain, multifunctional homodimeric protein which carries out all of the enzymatic steps needed for de novo synthesis of long chain fatty acids, bacterial fatty acid synthesis is carried out by a number…
New Compound Effective Against MRSA
Bacterial resistance to available antibiotics is becoming an increasing problem; methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), which is broadly resistant to penicillins and cephalosporins, is a particular problem in hospital settings. A recent report in the journal Science describes new compounds effective…
