A group of researchers in a new research have found a new mechanism that a specific superbug uses to fight off a key front-line antibiotic called daptomycin.
Cesar Arias, M.D., Ph.D., who is the senior author of the study and associate professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) Medical School, said that antibiotic resistance is among one of the major threats to the public health in the 21st Century.
The study was particularly focused on a hard-to-treat superbug called vancomycin-resistant enterococci or VRE that commonly affect patients having a compromised immune system or who are critically ill.
The superbug are likely to build resistance to one of the few antibiotics that works against it - daptomycin.
In order to find out why VRE developed the ability to build resistance aginst daptomycin during the course of treatment, Arias' team used fluorescent labeled daptomycin and studied the interaction between the superbug and the antibiotic with the help of advanced microscopy techniques.
In contrast to the prevailing belief that tiny electrical charges on the surface of VRE cells repel the antibiotic, the researchers suggested that the VRE cells actually divert the antibiotic and "trap" it to an area where it is ineffective.
The mechanism of resistance is completed with the change in the composition of the bacterial cell membrane. The study also provides the genetic and biochemical basis for the resistance pathway.
-With inputs from ANI
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