Imagine taking an antibiotic that has been around for 70 years and making it up to 100 times more powerful.
That’s exactly what Nathaniel Martin, a professor of biological chemistry, and his team have done.
Their exciting discovery could help fight some of the toughest, drug-resistant bacteria. Their research is published in the journal PNAS.
Bacitracin might not be a household name for everyone, but it’s one of the most widely used antibiotics globally.
While it’s not commonly used in the Netherlands, most North American households have some form of bacitracin in their medicine cabinets. It’s typically used as a topical cream for cuts and scrapes to prevent infection.
Martin has always been fascinated by bacitracin because it attacks bacteria in a unique way. Unlike other antibiotics, bacitracin attaches to a specific part of the bacterial cell membrane, preventing the bacteria from building their cell wall and stopping their growth.
A few years ago, Martin read a scientific paper that detailed how bacitracin binds to bacteria.
This paper revealed something intriguing about how bacitracin kills bacteria, something no one had fully understood before.
The paper described the crystal structure of bacitracin, showing the precise arrangement of its atoms.
The key detail was that a bacitracin molecule has five points that make contact with the bacterial cell membrane, like arms reaching out and grabbing the bacteria. Martin wondered, “What if we could make these arms longer and stickier? Would that make bacitracin more effective?”
Martin and his team at the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL) decided to try and create an improved version of bacitracin using chemical synthesis. Most antibiotics are produced by soil-dwelling microorganisms and are not necessarily optimized for use in the human body. Some antibiotics, like penicillin, have been improved by chemists over the years, but bacitracin is still used in its natural form. This meant its full potential had not been unlocked yet.
Martin aimed to change this, and he was successful. The new version of bacitracin created by his team was ten to 100 times more potent than the natural form.
While testing the new bacitracin on lab-grown bacteria, the researchers made another important discovery. The enhanced bacitracin was much more effective at preventing the growth of certain drug-resistant bacteria. Bacterial resistance is a growing global problem that worries doctors worldwide.
The World Health Organization even calls it a ‘top global public health threat.’
Martin’s research was not initially aimed at creating a commercially viable product. “First, we needed to show it can be done,” Martin explained. Now that they have proven it’s possible, he is considering a follow-up study to explore how the enhanced bacitracin could be used to treat serious, drug-resistant infections.
This groundbreaking research shows that even old antibiotics like bacitracin can be dramatically improved with modern chemistry.
This could be a significant step forward in the fight against drug-resistant bacteria, potentially saving countless lives in the future. For now, Martin and his team are excited about their discovery and eager to continue their research to unlock even more potential in bacitracin.
