Scientists discover new antibiotic candidates in human body

The researchers believe that they might develop synthetic peptides that could be used as antibiotics against drug-resistant bacteria by modifying these peptides to enhance their antimicrobial activity.

By: Editorial Team | | Published: August 20, 2018 6:59 pm

We all know that the human body produces many antimicrobial peptides that help the immune system to heal infections. In fact, they are found in nearly all living organisms and can kill many microbes. But antimicrobial peptides are not so powerful to act as antibiotic drugs on their own. Thus, according to the MIT news report, scientists are hoping to tackle these peptides as potential antibiotics. Now they have discovered that other peptides in the human body can also have potent antimicrobial effects, expanding the pool of new antibiotic candidates.

According to a new study, researchers from the University of Naples Federico II and MIT found that fragments of the protein pepsinogen, an enzyme used to digest food in the stomach, can kill bacteria such as E. coli and Salmonella.

The researchers believe that they might develop synthetic peptides that could be used as antibiotics against drug-resistant bacteria by modifying these peptides to enhance their antimicrobial activity.

Cesar de la Fuente-Nunez, an MIT postdoc and Areces Foundation Fellow, and one of the senior authors of the paper reportedly said, “These peptides really constitute a great template for engineering. The idea now is to use synthetic biology to modify them further and make them more potent.”

He also added, “It’s a data-mining approach to very easily find peptides that were previously unexplored. We have patterns that we know are associated with classical antimicrobial peptides, and the search engine goes through the database and finds patterns that look similar to what we know makes up a peptide that kills bacteria.”

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Published: August 20, 2018 6:59 pm

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