What is it about?
This work describes the development of a novel family of cationic polymers designed to kill bacteria without inducing antibiotic resistance. These polymers were synthesized with a specific catalyst and molecular building blocks. They contain positive charges that can interact with the negatively-charged membranes of bacteria leading to their destruction and, ultimately, bacterial cell death.
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Why is it important?
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria, such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), are a major threat to public health. New antibiotics need to be invented to combat these bacteria and avoid common injuries and infection to be lethal again.
Perspectives
This publication is a culmination of several years of collaborative work between laboratories at Texas A&M University (Michaudel lab) and the University of Massachusetts Amherst (Schiffman group), but is only the first step in the identification of efficient and selective antibacterial molecules based on this molecular architecture.
Quentin Michaudel
Texas A&M University College Station
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Ring-opening metathesis polymerization of
N
-methylpyridinium-fused norbornenes to access antibacterial main-chain cationic polymers, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, December 2023, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2311396120.
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