Researchers make progress on antibiotics

(ChinaPost.com.tw) – A Taiwanese research team has made a major breakthrough in the development of a new class of antibiotics that could give humans new leverage in their never-ending battle with bacteria, according to academic sources.

The research team, led by Che Alex Ma, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Genomics Research Center, has successfully developed a complete three-dimensional model structure of the membrane protein that resides on the surface of the bacteria Escherichia coli, the research institute said in a press statement.

This marks the first time that a mechanism that holds the key to bacterial cell wall formation has been disclosed in detail and could lead to the development of a new generation of antibiotics, the statement said.

Bacteria construct cell walls as they divide and multiply, and antibiotics are effective because they block certain key enzymes that help bacteria build those walls. By deciphering the membrane protein — in this case penicillin binding protein 1b (PBP1b) — Ma’s team can better figure out how to block it.

The study immediately attracted attention from the global academic community after it was published May 19 in the online version of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences journal — the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Over the past 80 years since the discovery of penicillin, at least 1,000 kinds of antibiotics have been developed to fight off bacterial infections, about 150 of which have been commonly used to treat infections.

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