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AbdulRaouf Al-Mana & mah – Rawan Hassan Rida / Gaza
A European research team has succeeded in finding a new therapeutic tool against resistant tuberculosis, which consists of ensuring that bacteria kill themselves with a poison that they secrete. The study was published in Molecular Cell.
Deadly tuberculosis, caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, remains one of the leading causes of death in the world. The disease affects 10 million people a year and kills 1.5 million people.
Previous genetic studies have shown that Mycobacterium tuberculosis has about 80 poison control systems: closely related gene clusters that encode both the toxic protein and its anti-toxic agent.
Under normal conditions – when conditions are favorable for bacterial growth – an anti-toxin inhibits the activity of poisons, but in difficult conditions such as nutritional deficiencies, a group of specialized enzymes destroys the molecules antiviral, activates the toxin, which in turn inhibits bacterial growth, To survive in these difficult circumstances to create more favorable conditions.
Poison can kill the bacteria in a suicide. The biological target is still controversial. Bacterial suicide is considered a defense against viruses, which means that HIV-infected bacteria choose suicide to avoid spreading the virus. Infection with neighboring bacteria and that they commit suicide in case of nutrient shortage. The door of sacrifice for the benefit of the group.
The research team based on the present study has succeeded in identifying one of these suicide toxins, MbcT, which, if not inhibited by the MbcA antibody, kills the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis by destroying the stock of the compound. adenosine and nicotine amine (+ NAD), a small molecule needed. For the sustainability of life.
Mouses
To show the therapeutic potential of this toxin, they infected mouse cells with a strain of Mycobacterium tuberculosis fungus, but it is industrially equipped to produce MbcT, which has significantly reduced the number of bacteria that infect cells, survival rate of rats.
The study also revealed the synergistic effect of the toxin with isoniazid: the mixture reduced the number of bacteria in the lungs by 100 fold, while the only isoniazid reduced the number of only ten , and the MbcT alone reduced it five times.
If scientists can find molecules capable of disrupting this system and causing the death of bacterial cells in patients with tuberculosis, this molecule would be the ideal drug to fight against pulmonary tuberculosis in an innovative way, relying on the metabolic mechanisms of bacteria.
The team should examine thousands of small molecules to see if they have this ability.
Anti-toxin systems have been detected in several types of bacteria and will be a valuable material for research in the future. They could be a glimmer of hope for new methods of treating infectious diseases.
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