Antibiotic-boosting drug kills superbugs

Main Category: MRSA / Drug Resistance
Article Date: 18 Oct 2004 - 0:00 PDT

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A UK company claims to have discovered a compound that renders the MRSA superbug vulnerable to the antibiotic it normally resists.

MRSA - methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus - is defined by its ability to resist the antibiotic methicillin. Like penicillin, methicillin works by blocking bacterial enzymes called PBPs, which normally strengthen cell walls by forming cross links.

The first MRSA strains appeared in 1961, just two years after methicillin was launched.

These bacteria got their resistance by picking up the gene for another PBP enzyme, PBP2a, to which methicillin cannot bind.

MRSA strains now cause up to 60% of all "staph" infections in some hospitals. Some MRSA strains are also becoming resistant to other antibiotics - including vancomycin, the antibiotic doctors resort to when nothing else works...... CONTINUES......www.newscientist.com

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