Depriving Bacteria of Food Holds Promise for New Antibiotics

Depriving Pneumococcus bacterium of it's favorite food could lead to better therapies.

Pneumococcus, the world’s deadliest organism that is responsible for more than one million deaths each year is the leading cause of mortality in children under five. It is the main cause of bacterial pneumonia, meningitis, sepsis and inner ear infections.

‘Understanding the food needs of microorganisms could hold the key to better and alternative therapies.’
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In the study in >i>Science Advances, researchers have determined the structure of the unique ‘gateway’ that pneumococcus uses to steal manganese from the body.

All microorganisms require vitamins and minerals to survive. Manganese was critical for survival of the pneumococcus.

University of Melbourne Associate Professor Megan Maher, a laboratory head at Bio21, said they noticed the bacterium was drawing in nutrients in a regulated way.

“Eventually we discovered that this was due to a unique gateway that sits in the bacterium’s membrane that opens and closes to specifically allow manganese in,” said Associate Professor Maher.

“This is a completely new structure that has never been seen in a pathogen like this.”

University of Melbourne Professor Christopher McDevitt, a laboratory head at the Doherty Institute, said the study’s finding changes what we know about the pathogen’s survival.

“Previously, it was thought that these gateways acted like Teflon coated channels in the sense that everything just flowed through,” explained Professor McDevitt.

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“Now we understand that it is selectively drawing the manganese in. Any disturbance of this gateway starves the pathogen of manganese, which prevents it from being able to cause disease.”

It could hold the key to better and alternative therapies against the pneumococcus.

Although a pneumococcal vaccine does exist, it only provides limited protection against circulating strains, and antibiotic resistance rates are rapidly rising.

“It’s a really attractive therapeutic target as it sits on the surface of the bacterium, and our bodies don’t use this type of gateway,” Professor McDevitt said

“At a time when we are seeing rising resistance to our first and last line antibiotics, and the emergence of ‘superbugs’, it is important that we think of new strategies to control this deadly organism.”

Source-Medindia