New Delhi: Scientists at a British university have chanced up a protein that can kill the E. coli bacterium, known to cause serious food poisoning in humans.
The protein Colicin N is found inside the Escherichia coli itself, and kills competing bacterium in a very efficient way.
As part of their investigations, researchers at Newcastle University divided the protein into three parts: a receptor, which helps the protein lock-on to the bacterium; a toxic part that punches holes in the membrane of the bacterium to kill it; and a "tail-like" part.
The "tail" was thought to help the protein sneak into the cell but assumed to be harmless to the bacterium itself.
According to the researchers, they wanted to see what effect each part of the protein would have on E.coli bacteria. Amazingly when they introduced the translocation tail into the environment of the bacteria, it killed them.
Chris Johnson, a researcher who made the key discovery, said: "When I saw what had happened I didn't believe it. So we repeated it several times and the same thing happened, the bacteria died. This was certainly a result that we weren't expecting. We don't really know how this is all working so we will be looking at this in much more detail but it looks promising."
The research team at Newcastle described their findings in a paper published in the journal Molecular Microbiology this week.
Professor of structural biochemistry at Newcastle University's Centre for Bacterial Cell Biology, Jeremy Lakey, who led the research team, said: "It will be relatively easy to make new antibiotics out of it."
He, however, added that the research was still in its early stages.
"It's an early stage basic discovery. It kills bacteria by a new and as yet unknown mechanism, so we need to do a lot more work to discover exactly what is happening here and whether it could be used for new drugs. But it is unlike anything I have seen before and one of the most exciting things I have seen in 30 years of research on antibacterials," he said.
The finding means a whole new class of antibiotics to help fight Escherichia coli.
Antibiotics have saved millions of lives across the world, but recently several experts have warned that over use has resulted into the bacteria developing immunity and the drugs becoming ineffective.
The discovery shows promise in combating an increasingly important class of antibiotic resistant infections caused by E. coli.
Comments
| Quick linksNews
National
International
Regional
Politics
Education & Career
Business
Science & Technology
Health
Views & Analysis
The Funny Side
© 2012 Awaz Multimedia & Publications. All rights reserved.
Hectic activity as Congress gears up to take Telangana decisionThe Congress Saturday stepped up its efforts to find a solution to the Telangana issue with the national capital witnessing a flurry of activity and meetings...... More
Also Read: Digvijaya statement will only prolong
BJP back to Ram temple, Parties slam bidVisiting Ayodhya, Shah, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) general secretary and in charge of Uttar Pradesh, said that he hoped a grand temple dedicated to Lord Ram will be built there soon, signalling the direction.... More
BJP's concept of religious & ethnic minorities in the nation is like the Nazi concept of minorities in the Germany of 1930s-1940s, where they did have a limited space for some from the minority communities like Jews, Slovaks, Gypsies at the cost of equal ... More
It took seven years for thousands of men, most of them highly-trained and skilled in tunnel building, who braved geographical constraints and inclement weather to build the all-weather tunnel. Some of the tunnel boring machinery - an improved ..... More