Scientists at
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital have discovered an enzyme that regulates production of the toxins that contribute to potentially fatal
Staphylococcus aureus infections, paving the way for a new class of antibiotics to combat staph and other Gram-positive infections.
“This recent discovery [of the fatty acid kinase] is not the only important finding made during that time, just the latest advance in a continuum of research focused on understanding how the unique aspects of lipid synthesis in bacteria can be exploited as a target for the development of new drugs,” says Dr. Charles Rock, a member of the
St. Jude Department of Infectious Diseases.
Hospital researchers also showed that the enzyme allows
Staphylococcus aureus uses fatty acids acquired from the infected individual to make the membrane that bacteria need to grow and flourish.
Rock’s laboratory has received
National Institutes of Health grant funding to work in this area for 35 years.
“This bacteria causes life-threatening infections and is evolving resistance to most of the antibiotics used for treatment, making it important for us to discover new targets for drug discovery,” he says. “Hospitals are the focus of the problem because that is where susceptible patients concentrate antibiotic use is the highest.”
Staphylococcus aureus is the most common cause of staph infections, including methicillin-resistant
Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), the drug-resistant infection that is a growing problem in hospitals.
Rock expects the timeline for an antibiotic to be developed and available on the marketplace to range from 10 to 15 years.
His team is now focused on figuring out how the fatty acid kinase enzyme system regulates virulence factor production in
Staphylococcus aureus at the molecular level.
By Michael Waddell
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