National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center researchers yesterday announced the discovery of a detox mechanism of typhoid bacteria, which allows the bacteria to repel antibiotics and develop drug resistance, while the findings could help develop medicine to inhibit drug resistance.
Researchers Chen Chun-jung (陳俊榮) and Jean Yuch-cheng (簡玉成) analyzed the structure of Salmonella enterica and discovered a channel-like structure on the bacteria’s membrane protein, which could capture antibiotics and toxins inside the bacteria and remove them via the channel structure.
The channel structure is 300,000 times narrower than a human hair, Chen said, adding that the team discovered it by subjecting the protein crystals — assemblages of protein cultivated for study by X-ray or other light sources — of the bacteria to synchrotron radiation at both the Taiwan Light Source synchrotron in Hsinchu City and the SPring-8 synchrotron in Harima, Japan.
The synchrotron is a type of particle accelerator that allows for the observation of atomic structure through a sustained beam of electromagnetic waves on different wavelengths brighter than that from an X-ray tube.
Twenty-one million new cases of typhoid fever and more than 200,000 deaths occur annually worldwide and antibiotic therapy is the major treatment for typhoid fever, while it often has limited effect due to the bacteria’s ability to “pump out” antibiotics, Chen said.
The same channel structure has also been discovered on other bacteria, such as Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus, which could cause serious food poisoning and post-surgery infections respectively, Chen said, adding that the team’s work could enable pharmaceutical companies to design drugs that block the channel to reduce the bacteria’s drug tolerance.
Traditional medicine development selects about 250 types of compounds from 5,000 to 10,000 kinds of small molecules for animal testing before narrowing down to less than 10 compounds for human trials, which generally take 15 years, as traditional X-ray devices take a day to analyze the atomic structure of a molecule, while the Taiwan Photon Source synchrotron in Hsinchu could lower the analysis time to 30 seconds and the entire development process to three weeks, Jean said.
“Over the past 18 years, there have been six Nobel Prizes awarded to scientists who use synchrotron in combination with protein crystallography to understand the structure of proteins. The Taiwan Photon Source synchrotron is expected to boost Taiwan’s number of Nobel Prize winners,” Jean said.
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