More than a million people each year die from infections by pathogens that are resistant to antimicrobials, and the problem is growing. Meanwhile, the discovery of new antimicrobials that can help stem the tide has not kept pace.
More than a million people each year die from infections by pathogens that are resistant to antimicrobials, and the problem is growing. Meanwhile, the discovery of new antimicrobials that can help stem the tide has not kept pace.
Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin see promise in a class of natural antimicrobials called microcins, which are produced by bacteria in the gut and help them compete with rival bacteria. In a pair of recent papers, the researchers identify the first known microcin that targets the strains of bacteria that cause cholera and describe a method for finding microcins in bacterial genomes with the help of artificial intelligence.
«Imagine one day eating yogurt containing probiotic strains of bacteria that produce microcins to prevent or treat cholera, pathogenic E. coli, inflammatory bowel disease or colon cancer», said Bryan Davies, professor of molecular biosciences and a senior author on both papers. «The idea is to put in healthy bacteria that would then be able to continually make microcins in the gut to fight off the pathogen of interest.»
The cholera research, published in Cell Host & Microbe, was led by Sun-Young Kim, a Ph.D. candidate at UT.
Cholera, the deadly diarrheal disease caused by Vibrio cholerae bacteria, causes severe dehydration and can kill in just a few hours. According to the World Health Organization, each year cholera is responsible for 21,000 to 143,000 deaths worldwide.
