Malacidins New Soil Antibiotic Summary

English

Students Name

Institution of Affiliation

DateMalacidins New Soil Antibiotic Summary

The article describes the discovery of a new class of natural product antibiotics, a novel of calcium-dependent cyclic peptide natural antibiotic by the name malacidin. From the study, the experiments conducted indicate that the mode of action of malacidin is different from the other antibiotics that require calcium. Bacteria are constantly evolving becoming resistant to drugs making it difficult to treat people that are affected by bacterial infections necessitating the need for more research for the development of antibiotics. The new target for the researchers is the microorganisms that live in the soil.

To make their research a success, the researchers collected over 2000 soil samples and picked daptomycin as a guide antibiotic for reference. Daptomycin kills the cells through the aid of calcium to disrupt the bacterial cell walls. The research team then used the DNA information encoded for the production of the antibiotic daptomycin as their guide during the study of the genomes of antibiotics used by the microorganisms in the soil samples. It is during the research that they came across the new family of antibiotics, the malacidins that can fight off infections using the same mechanism as daptomycin to kill the cells that are through using calcium to disrupt the bacterial cell wall. Contrary to the other antibacterial agents, the calcium in the malacidin family does not cause leakage in the cell walls but instead disrupt the antibiotic behavior in different ways. The researchers tested the antibiotic sample on rats that were induced with MRSA skin infection to test the efficiency of the antibiotic. The malacidin is reported to kill the bacteria effectively. Besides, the researchers examined the bacterial resistance on malacidins to which tested negative according to the study.

The next experiment would be to test the new antibiotic with other animals such as pigs and rabbits with induced conditions before clinical trials with humans, and this will increase the efficacy of the antibiotic to humans to which would also turn positive. Besides more research should be conducted to find more members of the malacidins family.