Successful tests: new active ingredient could work against resistant bacteria

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According to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature, this new antibiotic, called zosurabalpine, worked in the laboratory and in mice against the antibiotic-resistant bacteria Acinetobacter baumannii — a typical hospital germ that can cause pneumonia.

The researchers emphasized in the study that antibiotic resistance has developed into an acute threat to health in recent decades. The bacteria against which the new active ingredient is directed is particularly worrying. Because it belongs to the so-called gram-negative bacteria, which are surrounded by inner and outer membranes that are difficult for most antibiotics to overcome. There have been repeated outbreaks of infections in intensive care units around the world.

Further studies needed

“It has been more than fifty years since the last independent class of antibiotics capable of treating infections caused by gram-negative bacteria was introduced,” said Michael Lobritz of the pharmaceutical company Roche in Basel, who was involved in the study. This was announced by the Keystone SDA news agency.

“Any new class of antibiotics that can treat infections caused by multidrug-resistant bacteria such as carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii would be a major breakthrough,” he said. However, further research is needed to know whether zosurabalpine will make this breakthrough.

According to Roche, Phase 1 clinical trials are currently underway to assess the safety, tolerability and pharmacology of the active ingredient in humans.

Zosurabalpine belongs to a new chemical class of antibiotics called bound macrocyclic peptides. It attacks a new target in bacteria, as Lobritz explained. As a result, bacteria have not yet had the opportunity to develop resistance mechanisms against this molecule.

“The future looks promising”

Specifically, the active ingredient inhibits the transport of the lipopolysaccharide (LPS) molecule to the outer layer of the bacterial membrane. Inhibition of this transport causes LPS to accumulate to toxic levels in the cell, ultimately leading to cell death.

In the study, zosurabalpine was found to be effective against more than 100 laboratory samples of the bacteria. The study also found that it significantly reduced bacterial levels in infected mice with pneumonia.

“Given that zosurabalpine is already being tested in clinical trials, the future looks promising,” researchers Paul Hegenrother and Morgan Gugger from the University of Illinois in the US, who were not involved in the study, wrote in a commentary on the research in the same journal. (SDA)

Source:Blick