A new antibiotic, identified in a soil sample, may be capable of fighting a range of drug-sensitive and drug-resistant bacteria.
Researchers at Rutgers University-New Brunswick (N.J.), biotechnology company Naicons, NeED Pharmaceuticals and Italy-based universities, discovered the antibiotic, called pseudouridimycin. The research team published their findings in Cell. They discovered the antibiotic while screening microbes from soil samples found in Italy.
The antibiotic inhibits bacterial RNA polymerase, which is the enzyme responsible for bacterial RNA synthesis. It uses different mechanisms to inhibit the enzyme, including a binding site, as compared to rifampin, the antibiotic most commonly used to inhibit bacterial RNA polymerase.
The antibiotic does not show any cross-resistance with rifampin, instead, it works as a complement to rifampin. It has a "spontaneous resistance rate that is just one-tenth the spontaneous resistance rate of rifampin," the study shows. Additionally, pseudouridimycin inhibits only bacterial RNA polymerase but not human RNA polymerases.
"The discovery also underscores the importance of natural products in providing new antibiotics," said Stefano Donadio, CEO of Naicons, who co-led the research. "Microbes have had had billions of years to develop 'chemical weapons' to kill other microbes."