New compound defeats drug-resistant bacteria

Bacteria can use efflux pumps to rid themselves of antibiotics, becoming drug-resistant until newer antibiotics are developed. By blocking those pumps, researchers can restore the potency of old antibiotics to which bacteria have become resistant. Chemists at Brown University, USA, have synthesized a new compound that makes drug-resistant bacteria susceptible again to antibiotics.

The compound - BU-005 - blocks pumps that a bacterium employs to expel an antibacterial agent called chloramphenicol. The team used a new and highly efficient method for the synthesis of BU-005 and other C-capped dipeptides. Results appear in Bioorganic and Medicinal Chemistry.

A particularly ingenious weapon in the bacterial arsenal is the drug efflux pump. These pumps are proteins located in the membranes of bacteria that can recognize and expel drugs that have breached the membranes. In some cases, the bacterial pumps have become so advanced they can recognize and expel drugs with completely different structures and mechanisms.