Drug Decelerates Bacterial Race to Antibiotic Resistance
Published:25 Jul.2023 Source:Baylor College of Medicine
The team reports in the journal Science Advances a drug that, in laboratory cultures and animal models, significantly reduces the ability of bacteria to develop antibiotic resistance, which might prolong antibiotic effectiveness. The drug, called dequalinium chloride (DEQ), is a proof-of-concept for evolution-slowing drugs.
"Most people with bacterial infections get better after completing antibiotic treatment, but there are also many cases in which people decline because the bacteria develop resistance to the antibiotic, which then can no longer kill the bacteria," said corresponding author Dr. Susan M. Rosenberg, Ben F. Love Chair in Cancer Research and professor of molecular and human genetics, biochemistry and molecular biology and molecular virology and microbiology at Baylor. She also is a program leader in Baylor's Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center (DLDCCC).
In this study, Rosenberg and her colleagues looked for drugs that could prevent or slow down E. coli bacteria from developing resistance to two antibiotics when exposed to a third antibiotic, ciprofloxacin (cipro), the second most prescribed antibiotic in the U.S. and one associated with high bacterial resistance rates.
The resistance is caused by new gene mutations that occur in the bacteria during infection. The drug DEQ reduces the speed at which new mutations are formed in bacteria, the team finds.