Researchers developed a new antibiotic that may prove to be an effective treatment for drug-resistant bacterial infections and the bubonic plague, according to a study published in the journal mBio.
For the study, researchers examined an experimental drug that inhibits LpxC, an enzyme critical to producing the outer membranes of gram-negative bacteria, which facilitate drug resistance. The researcher's analyzed the inhibitor's effect on more than a dozen pathogenic bacterial strains in the laboratory setting. The drug displayed high levels of antibiotic activity against all strains, even those with drug resistance.
To test the drug's efficacy against the bubonic plague, researchers injected 15 mice with the bacteria that causes the illness — Yersinia pestis. After five days, only mice that received the treatment were still alive.
"Our results demonstrate the safety and efficacy of LpxC inhibitors as a new class of antibiotic against fatal infections caused by extremely virulent pathogens," wrote the study's authors. "The present findings also highlight the potential of LpxC inhibitors for clinical development as therapeutics for infections caused by multidrug-resistant bacteria."
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