Researchers from the Rockefeller University in the US announced the discovery of a new type of antibiotics, called "malacidins" (malacidins).

Scientists have discovered these compounds by examining bacteria that inhabit the soil. The first studies showed that malacidins are effective against methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus - a microorganism that causes pneumonia and sepsis.

In the twentieth century, bacteria regularly became a source of new antibiotics, but in the last thirty years the industry is in crisis - it is extremely rare to create new drugs. At the same time today, medicine especially needs such drugs because the pathogens become resistant to the usual antibiotics. According to scientists who have found malacids, many types of soil bacteria have not been studied so far, that's why they can become a source of new effective drugs.

In search of new compounds, researchers analyzed nearly 2,000 soil samples, volunteers collected these samples throughout the US. Scientists were looking for certain motifs in the DNA of isolated bacteria - relatively short sequences of amino acids or nucleotides, supposedly associated with certain functions. Researchers were interested in motifs characteristic of calcium-dependent antibiotics (drugs that can kill microorganisms only in the presence of calcium). These motives could turn out to be a "signal flag" indicating the existence of a longer genetic sequence associated with the ability to kill microorganisms.

The found sequences were multiplied and, with the help of genetic engineering methods, introduced into bacterium streptomycetes, which are most often used for the synthesis of antibiotics. After a while, the bacteria began to produce malacidins.

According to the researchers, the new drug interferes with the mechanism by which bacterial pathogens form cell walls. The drug was tested in rats infected with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. The agent proved to be effective, while the causative agent of the disease did not become resistant to the antibiotic over time.

Before becoming a component of drugs, malacidins must undergo many stages of efficacy and safety testing. At the same time, the used methods of searching for new drugs can be applied already today.

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