Antimicrobial resistant infections kill millions every year. They have the potential to take us back to the dark ages, when common infections like urinary tract infections (UTIs) or pneumonia were lethal and untreatable. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) occurs when the germs that cause infections — bacteria, viruses, or fungi — develop ways to evade the drugs used to treat them.

WHY IS AMR ON THE RISE?

Overuse of antibiotics in places like chicken farms and healthcare clinics has become a leading driver of AMR. The good news is that a major scientific push is making significant progress in the fight against AMR. USE OF AI The study used machine learning to search for potential antibiotic agents in a huge database of microbes which live in environments such as soil, the ocean, and human and animal guts.

THE POTENTIAL ANTIBIOTIC AGENTS:

Bacteria fight against each other constantly in these environments, using warfare tools called peptides which are shot against other bacteria to kill them. The researchers mined this space for antibiotic peptides and found some hidden gems. In total, 863,498 new antimicrobial peptides were predicted, more than 90% of which had never been described before.

PEPTIDES AS ANTIBIOTICS

  • To find out which of these peptides could be useful as antibiotics, the researchers synthesized 100 peptides and tested them against 11 disease-causing bacterial strains in laboratory dishes.
    • They found that 79 peptides disrupted bacterial membranes and 63 peptides specifically targeted antibiotic-resistant bacteria, such as Escherichia coli (E.coli) and Staphylococcus aureus.
  • The researchers also tested the compounds in mice with infected skin abscesses, but only three of the peptides showed antimicrobial effects in vivo (in a living organism).
    • This indicates that their efficacy may be limited in vivo. Still, this is a remarkable result.