Saturday, September 9, 2017

Honeybees can play a role in developing new antibiotics




Image result for honeybee



 In the article from ScienceDaily, UIC researchers, led by co-investigators Alexander Mankin and Nora Vazquez-Laslop discovered that a natural product from honeybees, Api137, is an inhibitor of translation termination. Antibiotics are known to kill bacteria by targeting ribosomes. However, Api137 interferes with different stages of translation when DNA is to be translated to proteins. This is significant because no new antibiotics have been discovered in 30 years and many bacteria are becoming resistant which is a major concern in public health. About 2 million people each year become infected with bacteria that is resistant to antibiotics, and about 23,000 of them die. This discovery can help create many new drugs to fight bacteria.

1 comment:

  1. The resistance of bacteria toward the drugs they were once sensitive to have been a huge problem. It is really hard for the scientists to keep up with the bacteria's adaptation ability. Wow! It is unbelievable that no antibiotic has been discovered in about 30 years. I agree this discovery can help create new drugs that can fight against bacteria.

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