Doctors Look Out: A life without antibiotic resistance is in the near future!!
By: Alyssa Firkus
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Antibiotic resistance has been a tremendous hurdle for battling many fatal diseases, such as cancer. Understanding the evolution of antibiotic resistance could further future drug design. Recent studies have shown that random mutations may not be random at all. Bacteria ensure that these mutations happen, "purposeful mutations. These "purposeful mutations" are essential in making sure there is plenty of variability, this is esseantial to form antibiotic resistance. Floyd Romesberg and colleagues tested two antibiotics, ciprofloxacin and rifampicin, to discover that Lex A cleavage is needed for the evolution of resistive, in both antibiotics tested, it causes bacteria not to develop resistance (Gene, 2005). Lex A stops the SOS response, which reacts in the cell when DNA synthesis is inhibited (Gene 2005). The removal of Lex A keeps the cell from being able to adapt. What can this mean for life? What genes can be controlled?
These findings look promising for future drug design, small molecules when administered with antibiotics could prevent bacteria from attaining resistance mutations. (Johnston 2005). Could this fight against antibiotic resistance lead to the reverse of other common resistances? Could this change previous existing resistances?
PrimaryReferences
Gene, M. (2005). “Evolution Under Intrinsic Control”. Available at:
http://www.idthink.net/biot/lexA/index.html.%20Accessed%20on%2001/10/2005.
Secondary Refernces
Johnston, N., (2005). “Reversing the evolution of antibiotic resistance”. Drug Discovery Today. 10;1267
