New treatment for resistant bacterial infections

(Northeastern University, November 13, 2013)

Researchers from Northeastern University present a novel approach to treat and elim­i­nate methi­cillin resis­tant staphy­lo­coccus aureus, or MRSA, a potent bac­terium that infects 1 mil­lion Amer­i­cans each year. The new work is on a spe­cial­ized class of cells pro­duced by all pathogens called per­sis­ters. These cells enter a dor­mant state that makes them imper­vious to tra­di­tional antibi­otics. Since these drugs work by tar­geting active cel­lular func­tions, they are use­less against dor­mant per­sis­ters, which aren’t active at all. For this reason, per­sis­ters are crit­ical to the suc­cess of chronic infec­tions and biofilms. In their new work, the team found that a drug called ADEP effec­tively wakes up the dor­mant cells and then ini­ti­ates a self-​​destruct mech­a­nism. The approach com­pletely erad­i­cated MRSA cells in a variety of lab­o­ra­tory exper­i­ments and, impor­tantly, in a mouse model of chronic MRSA infection.