The new antibiotic? It comes from the potato
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Antibiotic resistance is one of the most impacting health challenges of recent years. Since when Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928, bacteria began to develop new strategies to resist the effects of drugs. A trend that is leading all currently known antibiotics to become ineffective, so much so that, by 2050, multidrug-resistant microorganisms could become the leading cause of death in the world. Adherence to treatment, as well as the creation of new molecules, are the only way forward. That’s why every time an antibiotic is discovered – not so frequently, sadly – the news is greeted with great enthusiasm.
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New hope comes from solanimycin
The next hope is called solanimycin, it was discovered by a team of microbiologists from the University of Cambridge and the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas in Granada and appears to be effective against a wide range of fungi on both agricultural and human levels, starting with Candida albicans. Yes, because the new molecule was synthesized by a bacterium that infests potatoes, the Dickeya solanibelonging to the Gram-negative group, which has a high aggressiveness and infectious capacity, and appears to be produced by a broad spectrum of related phytopathogenic bacteria.
Urgent good antibiotics, in medicine and agriculture
“Many important drugs for the treatment of microbial infections derive from natural products produced by microorganisms – explains the doctor. Rita Monson of Churchill College in Cambridge -. In an era of increasing antimicrobial resistance, the discovery of new antibiotics for use in medicine and agriculture is urgent. Most of the therapeutic antibiotics currently used are derived from soil microbes, but this discovery also highlights the potential of plant-based microorganisms for drug production. “
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Effectiveness tested in the laboratory
There Candida albicans it is the main cause of human candidiasis that affects the female and male genitals, as well as the oral cavity and skin. Pathogenic fungi also represent a serious global threat to agriculture as well as to global food security, which is accentuated by the difficult treatment of these infections. And in the laboratory, solanimycin proved highly effective. The research results have just been published in the scientific journal mBio of the America Society for Microbiology, but it is not obvious that it will land in the pharmacy: the road to the production of a real drug is still long.
The microbe that is helping us discover new antibiotics
The Dickeya solani it was first identified more than 15 years ago. Researchers in the laboratory of the molecular microbiologist George Salmond Cambridge University began studying its antibiotic potential about a decade ago. And solanimycin isn’t the first antibiotic discovered thanks to this microbe. In previous work, researchers isolated another antibiotic called Oocydin A from the same pathogen, which is highly active against multiple plant pathogens. Those earlier findings, coupled with analysis of the bacterium’s genome, suggested it could have synthesized antibiotics thanks to an acid pH environment like that of a potato.
Towards clinical trials
“This antifungal is produced by bacteria only in response to acidic conditions. It almost seems like an intelligent protective mechanism that it uses to preserve itself – continues Monson -. The detection and response to environmental pH is an important regulatory signal used by bacteria to modulate expression. For example, the acid pH is a fundamental requirement for the virulence of Salmonella enterica as well “. Now the next steps to be taken to arrive at human administration pass from the patenting of the drug in a stable molecular structure and from clinical trials. “We are currently studying the chemical structure of solanimycin and starting to understand the possible links between genomic diversity and potential chemical diversity,” he points out. Miguel Matilla, researcher of the Estación Experimental del Zaidín in Granada, co-author of the research. And he adds that experiments on plants will start shortly to evaluate “the use of this antifungal on a large scale”.
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The new invasive fungal species
“The need for new antifungals has increased as existing medicines have become less effective and new invasive fungal species emerge. Furthermore, the increase in fungal infections of agricultural crops, plant ecosystems and livestock provides an additional incentive to identify new antifungal molecules. From a pharmaceutical and agricultural point of view, solanimycin can be a potentially exciting discovery and this study confirms the view that microbes associated with soil and plants represent an under-explored reservoir of bioactive metabolites. ” In short, he concludes, to fight this unequal battle “we must open ourselves to the exploration of everything that is out there to find new effective antibiotics”.
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