New compound infucid shows promise against resistant bacterial infections

New compound infucid shows promise against resistant bacterial infections

Antimicrobial resistance directly causes more than 1 million deaths each year and contributes to more than 35 million more, according to the World Health Organization.Staphylococcus aureusAndEnterococcusSp., 2 Gram-positive pathogens that are most likely to develop resistance to known treatments can lead to dangerous hospital-acquired and community-acquired infections.

This week inMicrobiology spectrumResearchers describe a newly synthesized compound called infuzid that shows activity against antimicrobial-resistant strains ofS. aureusAndEnterococcusIn laboratory and mouse tests. Additionally, the results suggest that Infuzid kills bacteria in a way that differs from other antimicrobial variants, which may help keep resistance at bay.

Infuzid grew out of more than a decade of work by interdisciplinary researchers looking for ways to create compounds that could act against pathogens in a manner similar to known pharmaceutical compounds. These include hydrazones, inorganic synthesized compounds that previous studies have shown to demonstrate antibacterial activity, including against resistant strains. The researchers synthesized 17 new compounds containing hydrazones, and among those infucid showed activity against gram-positiveS. aureusAndEnterococcus.

“We started the project as a collaboration, looking for ways to synthesize compounds and combine them with compounds that could potentially have biological activitiessaid medicinal chemist Michel Baltas, Ph.D., of the Coordination Laboratoire de Chimie de University of Toulouse in France.

The researchers found that Infuzid specifically attacks bacterial cells. In laboratory tests, they compared the antimicrobial effects of Infuzid against vancomycin, a powerful antibiotic that is the standard of care in treating resistant infections. They found that Infuzid reduced the size of bacterial colonies more quickly and effectively than the standard drug. In tests of resistantS. aureusInfections on the skin of mice, the compound effectively reduced the bacterial population. The reduction was even higher, the researchers reported, when Infuzid was combined with linezolid, a synthetic antibiotic.

Infuzid did not show significant activity against gram-negative pathogens, although Baltas said the group was looking for small changes to Infuzid that could expand its antimicrobial activity.

The researchers synthesized the compounds without solvents, which can be expensive and environmentally benign. The simplicity of the chemical reactions, Baltas said, would make it easy to create large quantities for new treatments. “I’m sure the same responses can scale.”

In addition, the group studied the effects of synthesized compounds on other infectious diseases, including tuberculosis. “We have many other candidates to make antimicrobial compounds,” Baltas said.

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