For decades, doctors have been using antibiotics to fight tuberculosis (TB). And consistently, the microbe responsible for the disease, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, has been fighting back. When confronted with current drugs, such as the antibiotic rifamycin, the bacterium often mutates in ways that make it resistant to the treatment.
For decades, doctors have been using antibiotics to fight tuberculosis (TB). And consistently, the microbe responsible for the disease, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, has been fighting back. When confronted with current drugs, such as the antibiotic rifamycin, the bacterium often mutates in ways that make it resistant to the treatment.
Rates of rifamycin resistance are steadily rising, which presents a major problem to doctors attempting to treat TB. But, according to a new study from a team of Rockefeller scientists, nature might have come up with a solution. The study, published in Nature Communications, suggests that an antibiotic found in dirt can destroy mutant mycobacteria.
Nature’s antibiotics
Rifamycin, or Rif, works by targeting RNA polymerase (RNAP), an enzyme crucial to bacteria’s survival. Resistance develops when the genes coding for RNAP mutate: Even a small genetic change can prevent Rif from binding to the enzyme and obstructing its function.
To circumvent resistance, researchers needed a drug that acted like Rif, but that could bind to RNAP, even in the presence of mutations. And while some scientists might turn to the lab to synthesize such a molecule, Sean F. Brady, the Evnin Professor, turned to the environment.
Read more at Rockefeller University
Image: Soil is a rich source of bacteria, some of which produce molecules that act as natural antibiotics. (Credit: Jacob Arthur Pritchard for The Rockefeller University)
