Bacterial High Rollers

One of the biggest threats to human health in the future is antibiotic resistance. Right now, it kills thousands of people that get infected mainly in hospitals. The pharmaceutical industry has been lagging on developing new antibiotics because it is increasingly harder and more expensive to achieve. In order to propose better approaches to fight this resistance, a better understanding of the mechanisms causing it must be achieved. Recently, a paper written by Susan M. Rosenberg, PhD, Ben F. Love Chair in Cancer Research and professor at Baylor described a mechanism that was found to greatly influence the presence of antibiotic resistance.

This mechanism involves the accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) inside the bacteria. These molecules are known for causing mutations in cell´s DNA. In this way, the accumulated ROSs cause high mutation rates which may modify the right genes to confer antibiotic resistance to the cell. But mutations occur on random genes, this means there´s the same possibility to get the antibiotic resistance mutation than to get any other mutation. There is the possibility that the mutation occurs on an essential gene which, in result, will kill the cell.

Taking the before mentioned into account, Dr Rosenberg considers these cells as “gamblers”. They roll the mutation “dice” to see if they can hit the jackpot and become immune to antibiotics. Understanding this mechanism leads to proposing better approaches to stop bacteria from becoming resistant to antibiotics. This is an important step in the battle against harmful micro-organisms.

Links https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/493015v1.full
https://www.genengnews.com/news/antibiotic-resistance-may-be-effectively-tackled-with-new-discovery/