Live
- Swiggy's IPO subscribed 3.59 times on last day
- Hold gram panchayats in villages to make decision public, Kejriwal tells sarpanches in Punjab
- Calcutta High Court stays suspension of 7 medical students on ragging charges
- Reliance Power’s stock hits 5 pc lower circuit after SECI ban
- Shaina NC slams MVA for caste-based, appeasement politics
- CBI arrests Delhi govt official for taking bribe from shopkeeper
- Unilateral appointment of arbitrators in public-private contract violates Article 14: Supreme Court
- Akhil Sachdeva set to give a fresh twist to the magic of Atif Aslam's Tere Bin
- Vanchana: A Tale of Justice, Secrets, and Betrayal
- Aadiparvam: A mystical tale of power, love, and cultural heritage
Wasp venom offers hope against lung diseases
MIT engineers have developed new antimicrobial peptides, which can combat bacteria causing respiratory and other infections, based on a naturally occurring peptide produced by a South American wasp
New York: MIT engineers have developed new antimicrobial peptides, which can combat bacteria causing respiratory and other infections, based on a naturally occurring peptide produced by a South American wasp.
The venom of insects such as wasps and bees is full of compounds that can kill bacteria. Unfortunately, many of these compounds are also toxic for humans, making it impossible to use them as antibiotic drugs.
However, in a study over mice, the team repurposed a toxin normally found in Polybia paulista -- a South American wasp -- to create variants of the peptide that are potent against bacteria but non-toxic to human cells.
They found that their strongest peptide could completely eliminate Pseudomonas aeruginosa -- a strain of bacteria that causes respiratory and urinary tract infections and is resistant to most antibiotics.
"We've repurposed a toxic molecule into one that is a viable molecule to treat infections," said Cesar de la Fuente-Nunez, postdoctoral researcher at MIT.
"By systematically analysing the structure and function of these peptides, we've been able to tune their properties and activity," Fuente-Nunez added.
The peptide, reported in the journal Nature Communications Biology, is small enough --only 12 amino acids -- that the researchers believed it would be feasible to create some variants of the peptide and test them to see if they might become more potent against microbes and less harmful to humans.
The team tested the peptides against seven strains of bacteria and two of fungus, making it possible to correlate their structure and physicochemical properties with their antimicrobial potency.
To measure the peptides' toxicity, the researchers exposed them to human embryonic kidney cells grown in a lab dish. In mice infected with Pseudomonas aeruginosa, the team found that several of the peptides could reduce the infection and could eliminate it completely.
"After four days, that compound can completely clear the infection, and that was quite surprising and exciting because we don't typically see that with other experimental antimicrobials or other antibiotics that we've tested in the past with this particular mouse model," Fuente-Nunez noted.
