Researchers found an already-known anticonvulsant drug could aid in the development of a brand new class of antibiotics.
Dozens of modern antibiotics tend to target the bacteria in action, but this new study looked at how to stop a certain process in which the harmful bacteria are created, McMaster University reported.
The finding could help combat the growing global problem of antibiotic resistance, which is making common treatments progressively less effective.
"Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) threatens the effective prevention and treatment of an ever-increasing range of infections caused by bacteria, parasites, viruses and fungi. A post-antibiotic era - in which common infections and minor injuries can kill - far from being an apocalyptic fantasy, is instead a very real possibility for the 21st Century," the World Health Organization stated on their website.
The recent study found the anticonvulsant drug, called lamotrigine, acts as a chemical inhibitor for the assembly of bacteria ribosomes. Ribosomes are the "molecular machines" that allow cells to create proteins. Some antibiotics help to inhibit the function of ribosomes, but lamotrigine actually stopped them in their tracks.
"Ribosome-inhibiting antibiotics have been routinely used for more than 50 years to treat bacterial infections, but inhibitors of bacterial ribosome assembly have waited to be discovered," said Eric Brown, principal investigator of the study and a professor of biochemistry and biomedical sciences at McMaster's Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research.
"Such molecules would be an entirely new class of antibiotics, which would get around antibiotic resistance of many bacteria. We found lamotrigine works," he said.
The team was successful in identifying lamotrigine's target within the bacteria, allowing researchers to better understand how ribosomes assemble themselves and how lamotrigine can be best utilized.
The findings were published recently in the open-access journal eLife.
