An international team led by researchers at Argentina’s CONICET has identified how a minimal change in a bacterial enzyme can reduce the effectiveness of some of the newest treatments against resistant bacteria. The study was published in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology.
The scientists studied the enzyme PER-14 and found it differs from PER-2, common in bacteria in Argentina, by a single amino acid. That small difference is enough for two recent inhibitors, avibactam and relebactam, to block the enzyme far less well. The authors believe PER-14 may have evolved from PER-2.
Drug-resistant infections already cause at least 700,000 deaths a year worldwide. Understanding these mechanisms at molecular level helps design more effective antibiotic combinations, explain researchers Melina Ruggiero and Melina García Alonso.
