Arushi Bidhuri
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Written By: Arushi Bidhuri | Updated : June 2, 2021 8:01 AM IST
Antibiotics Used To Treat Bacterial Infections May Help Treat Cancer
From testing different sources to developing new, lab-made drugs, scientists have been searching for a breakthrough to cure chronic diseases. Despite their constant effort, the world is running out of effective antibiotics - the drugs that fight infection and are required for everything from organ transplants to food poisoning treatment. Also known as antibacterial, these are drugs that either kill or slow the growth of bacteria. They include a variety of potent drugs that are used to treat bacteria-caused diseases. Antibiotics are unable to treat viral infections such as the common cold, flu, and most coughs.
In a quest to outdo chronic diseases, scientists at the University of Illinois Chicago have found that antibiotics used to treat common bacterial infections might help treat diseases like cancer.
A new Nature Communications study has found that in addition to bacterial illnesses like pneumonia and sinusitis, antibiotics can be used to treat human disorders like cancer. In laboratory tests, the UIC College of Pharmacy team demonstrated that eukaryotic ribosomes may be engineered to respond to antibiotics in the same manner as bacterial ribosomes do.
As per the study, fungi, plants and animals like humans are eukaryotes they are made up of cells with a distinct nucleus. Prokaryotes, on the other side, are bacteria. They are formed up of cells that lack a nucleus and have varying shapes, sizes, and characteristics. The ribosomes of eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells, which are in charge of protein synthesis for cell growth and reproduction, are also distinct.
Senior author of the study, Alexander Mankin, the Alexander Neyfakh Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy at the UIC College of Pharmacy said, "Some antibiotics, used for treating bacterial infections, work interestingly. They bind to the ribosome of bacterial cells and very selectively inhibit protein synthesis. Some proteins are allowed to be made, but others are not. Without these proteins being made, bacteria die."
When antibiotics are used to treat an infection, the patient's cells remain unaffected because the medications are not designed to attach to the differently shaped ribosomes of eukaryotic cells. Mankin explained that several diseases are caused by the production of unwanted proteins, which is seen in many forms of cancer or neurological illnesses. Researchers wanted to know if it would be possible to use an antibiotic to prevent a human cell from producing just the unwanted proteins. To find the answer to the question, the team "engineered the yeast ribosome to be more bacteria-like."
Mankin and Svetlov's team used biochemistry and fine genetics to change one of more than 7,000 nucleotides in yeast ribosomal RNA, which was enough to create a macrolide antibiotic, which works by a common class of antibiotics binding to bacterial ribosomes act on the yeast ribosome. The researchers used this yeast model to perform genomic profiling and high-resolution structural analysis to learn how each protein in the cell is synthesised and how the macrolide interacts with the yeast ribosome.
"Through this analysis, we understood that depending on a protein's specific genetic signature -- the presence of a 'good' or 'bad' sequence -- the macrolide can stop its production on the eukaryotic ribosome or not," Mankin said. "This showed us, conceptually, that antibiotics can be used to selectively inhibit protein synthesis in human cells and used to treat human disorders caused by 'bad' proteins."
As per the study results, the researchers said that based on this concept, they can look for antibiotics that can bind in unmodified eukaryotic ribosomes and optimise them to inhibit only proteins that are harmful to humans.
(with inputs from agencies)
