Teixobactin

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The development of new antibiotics has been a difficult task due to the rapid evolution of resistant bacteria. Teixobactin is a newly discovered antibiotic that is effective against gram positive bacteria including antibiotic-resistant strains, such as methicilin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE), without evidence of resistance development.¹ The antibiotic, isolated from the soil using a device called the iChip, works by inhibiting cell wall synthesis.¹

Introduction

An infographic on teixobactin on teixobactin's discovery, mechanism of action, and limitations. By Andy Brunning of Compound Interest

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Identification

Teixobactin was isolated from a new species, Eleftheria terrae, from soil using a high-throughput device called the iChip.¹ The iChip is used to isolate previously unculturable bacteria by growing microbes in situ where their normal environmental factors are used to cultivate the bacteria in hundreds of miniature diffusible chambers on the iChip.² Compared to standard Petri dishes, the colony count for soil bacteria using the iChip was 5 times higher when cultivating from a single colony's worth of bacteria.² Extracts from thousands of isolates were tested for antibiotic activity, and the discovery of teixobactin's properties lead to the identification and classification of E. terrae using 16S rRNA gene sequencing.¹ Relatives of E. terrae were not previously known to produce antibiotics.¹

Mechanism of Action, Efficacy, and Resistance of Teixobactin

Minimum inhibitory concentrations (MIC) were used to measure the effectiveness of teixobactin against pathogenic bacteria.¹ While teixobactin was not effective against gram-negative bacteria, less than 0.6 μg/mL of the drug was necessary to visibly inhibit the growth of many gram positive bacteria tested including pathogenic MRSA, VRE, Bacillus anthracis, and Clostridium difficile.¹ No toxicity toward mammalian cells was found as expected from the mechanism of action . The antibiotic works through inhibiting cell wall synthesis by binding to two cell wall precursors, lipid II and lipid III.¹ Though researchers looked for possible teixobactin-resistant mutants from S. aureau and M. tuberculosis through plating the bacteria in media with four times their respective MICs, no resistant mutants were found.¹

Limitations of Teixobactin

Include some current research in each topic, with at least one figure showing data.

Further Reading

[Sample link] Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever—Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Special Pathogens Branch

References

1. Ling, L., Schneider, T., Peoples, A., Spoering, A., Engels, I., & Conlon, B. et al. (2015). A new antibiotic kills pathogens without detectable resistance. Nature, 517(7535), 455-459. doi:10.1038/nature14098

2. Nichols, D., Cahoon, N., Trakhtenberg, E., Pham, L., Mehta, A., & Belanger, A. et al. (2010). Use of Ichip for High-Throughput In Situ Cultivation of "Uncultivable" Microbial Species. Applied And Environmental Microbiology, 76(8), 2445-2450. doi:10.1128/aem.01754-09

3. Wright, G. (2015). Antibiotics: An irresistible newcomer. Nature, 517(7535), 442-444. doi:10.1038/nature14193

4. [http://static.squarespace.com/static/54878590e4b0b8980d215324/t/54ad7aaae4b09209a6148464/1420655274323/2015+january+7th+Novobiotic+press+release.pdf Lewis, Kim (7 January 2015). NovoBiotic reports the discovery of teixobactin, a new antibiotic without detectable resistance. Cambridge, Massachusetts: NovoBiotic Pharmaceuticals. Retrieved 7 January 2015.

Edited by (your name here), a student of Nora Sullivan in BIOL168L (Microbiology) in The Keck Science Department of the Claremont Colleges Spring 2014.