Researchers believe corbomycin could be a 'promising clinical candidate'

• WHO say antibiotic resistance is one of the biggest threats to global health
• Tests on mice showed the antibiotics can block infections caused by drug-resistant bacteria
• A new antibiotic with 'a unique approach' to attacking and killing bacteria has been discovered by scientists.
• Researchers in Canada believe the newly-found corbomycin could be a 'promising clinical candidate' in the quest to tackle the growing issue of microbes becoming resistant to antibiotics.
• According to the World Health Organisation, antibiotic resistance is one of the biggest threats to global health, with an estimated 700,000 deaths worldwide every year.
• Corbomycin, along with a lesser-known antibiotic known as complestatin, kill bacteria by blocking the function of their cell wall, a phenomenon scientists have observed for the first time.
• Beth Culp, a PhD candidate in biochemistry and biomedical sciences at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, said: 'Bacteria have a wall around the outside of their cells that gives them shape and is a source of strength.
• 'Antibiotics like penicillin kill bacteria by preventing building of the wall, but the antibiotics that we found actually work by doing the opposite - they prevent the wall from being broken down.
• 'This is critical for cells to divide. In order for a cell to grow, it has to divide and expand.
• 'If you completely block the breakdown of the wall, it is like it is trapped in a prison, and can't expand or grow.'
  • Both corbomycin and complestatin come from a family of antibiotics called glycopeptides that are produced by soil bacteria.
  • Tests on mice showed that these antibiotics can block infections caused by Staphylococcus aureus, a group of drug-resistant bacteria that can cause serious infections such as blood poisoning and toxic shock syndrome.
  • The researchers used a cell imaging technique to make their discovery. Ms Culp said: 'This approach can be applied to other antibiotics and help us discover new ones with different mechanisms of action.
  • 'We found one completely new antibiotic in this study but, since then, we've found a few others in the same family that have this same new mechanism.'
  • The findings were published in the journal Nature and stirred a positive response from other experts in the field.
  • Dr Andrew Edwards, from the Department of Infectious Disease at Imperial College London called the findings 'an exciting development, both in terms of the approach used to discover the antibiotic, as well as the antibiotic itself'.
• He added: 'The new antibiotic has activity against several problematic bacteria including MRSA.'Unfortunately, it appears not to be active against bacteria such as E. coli, which cause more than 30,000 cases of bloodstream infection each year in the UK and are associated with resistance to many different antibiotics.'Interestingly, it also has activity against the bacterium that causes gonorrhoea, which is frequently resistant to antibiotics.'

  Three cases of drug resistant gonorrhoea were seen in the UK in 2018, worrying experts amid rising STI rates.

  In terms of gonorrhoea, the number of cases jumped by 249 per cent since 2009.

  Experts called the rising resistance to drugs a 'major national and international concern'.

  Despite his excitement at a potential combatant to this, Dr Edwards said: 'There is a long and difficult road to generating an antibiotic that can be used in the clinic. Many new antibiotics fail clinical trials because they are found to be too toxic or not sufficiently effective when given to humans.'

  Brendan Wren, professor of microbial pathogenesis at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: 'The study is a promising approach to discovering new antibiotics against MRSA and possibly other bacteria.

  'However, as this new group of antibiotics have only been tested in mice, there is still a long way to go before this could be a product as there will be considerations of costs and testing for toxicity and efficacy in humans.'

  Dr Claas Kirchhelle, Oxford Martin Programme on Collective Responsibility for Infectious Diseases and Lecturer of the History of Medicine, University College Dublin, welcomed the study.

  He said: 'Both the discovery of a novel mode of antibiotic action and the new method of antibiotic screening are great news.

  'However, similar to the announcement of other novel modes of antibiotic action over recent years, we will have to wait and see whether this discovery actually makes it to market.

  'Of the many 1000 of promising new pharmaceutical compounds discovered or developed each year only very few actually get licensed after many years of further development and testing.