by digicla
Targeting specific disease-causing bacteria in the mouth:
[Via EurekAlert! - Infectious and Emerging Diseases]
(Society for General Microbiology) Research to develop a narrow-spectrum antibiotic that can target a particular species of bacteria without harming the other “good” bacteria present was described at the Society for General Microbiology meeting at Harrogate Thursday, April 2.
[More]
This is a nice example of using our knowledge of biology to engineer new antibiotics. In this case, the researchers wanted to kill a specific type of bacteria but leave the others alone.
A broad spectrum antibiotic kills almost everything. But finding an antibiotic that is specific for just one type of bacteria is difficult if not impossible in some cases.
However, every bacteria has something that makes it unique. That is what makes it different from other types. In this case, there was a surface receptor. So the researchers took a broad spectrum antibiotic and attached it to the end of the protein that binds to the receptor.
Only the bacteria with the receptor will take up this engineered molecule. Only these bacteria will then die, leaving the other types around.
Nice way to make a magic bullet with antibiotics. Now, these sorts of approaches have been used before (i.e. attaching a toxic moiety to a specific antibody). However, this requires fairly straightforward approaches. Maybe it will even make it into toothpaste.
Maybe.
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