credit: Annie Cavanagh, Wellcome Images
Each year, over one million people in the U.S. become infected with MRSA, and as many as 20,000 die. MRSA is a bacterial infection that has plagued hospitals and physicians, and has seemed impossible to stop. Northeastern Professor of Biology Kim Lewis thinks he has the answer.
Three years ago Lewis discovered that when bacterial infections are attacked by antibiotics a small percentage of the cells go dormant. Called persister cells, their only goal is to stay hidden in the body until the attack is over and then become active again.
Persister cells are believed to account for about 1% of total cells in bacterial infections. This defense mechanism has been found in strains as diverse as cystic fibrosis and oral thrush. The cells must be active to be treated by medicine, so it’s a way for the infection to survive and reactivate later. Currently MRSA can persist, practically incurable in patients.
How Physicians Can Kill MRSA
Lewis released a study, published in Nature this month, which presents a process to ensure no persister cells exist. They couple a drug called ADEP4 with a traditional antibiotic. ADEP “effectively wakes up the dormant cells and then initiates a self-destruct mechanism. ADEP4 is an acyldepsipeptide antibiotic. It works by degrading over 400 proteins, forcing the cells to self-digest.
The approach completely eradicated MRSA cells in a variety of laboratory experiments and in a mouse model of chronic MRSA infection.” ADEP with an antibiotic appears to be completely effective. The ADEP kills the persister cells and the antibiotic does the rest of the work.
What about Adaptation?
Lewis has created ADEP-resistant cells in the lab but so far the “cells that develop ADEP resistance become rather wimpy.” So far, drugs such as rifampicin or linezolid work well against the ADEP-resistant cells. It’s important to note that there has been no human testing yet and this therapy is still a ways off.
Lewis’ team believes this can work against a variety of infections and are already working on several different strains, including cancerous tumors. We think this is ground-breaking research and had to share it with the Sermo community. If you’re an M.D. or a D.O. we’ll be discussing this in depth inside, please join us.
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