Sidekick chemicals reverse antibiotic resistance in microbes

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), which poses a major public health crisis worldwide. (credit: V. Altounian / Science Translational Medicine (2016)])

As microbes continue to build immunity to antibiotics, researchers are scrambling to design new therapies and figure out ways to restore the killing power of the once-potent medicines. Without such efforts, health experts fear a "post-antibiotic" era in which garden variety illnesses could turn deadly and much-needed surgical procedures might be skipped to avoid infection risks.

While brand-new antibiotics are in the works, a new study reports on two promising molecules that can transform menacing drug-resistant microbes into sitting ducks.

In mice with systemic, lethal infections of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a combo of one of the small molecules and a standard antibiotic knocked back the infection. Mice treated with just the antibiotic, on the other hand, remained riddled with MRSA. The findings, reported in Science Translational Medicine, suggest that the small molecules could reverse drug resistance in MRSA and treat infections without toxic side effects.

Read 14 remaining paragraphs | Comments