Putrescine protects against antibiotic-induced oxidation stress

What is it about?

Communication of antibiotic resistance among bacteria via small molecules is implicated in transient reduction of bacterial susceptibility to antibiotics, which could lead to therapeutic failures aggravating the problem of antibiotic resistance. Released putrescine, a polyamine, from the extremely antibiotic-resistant bacterium Burkholderia cenocepacia protects less-resistant cells from different species against the antimicrobial peptide polymyxin B (PmB). Exposure of B. cenocepacia to sublethal concentrations of PmB and other bactericidal antibiotics induces reactive oxygen species (ROS) production and expression of the oxidative stress response regulator OxyR. Here, we evaluated whether putrescine alleviates antibiotic-induced oxidative stress.

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Why is it important?

This study reveals an ornithine decarboxylase (BCAL2641) enzyme in the pathway for putrescine biosynthesis as a critical component of the putrescine-mediated communication of antibiotic resistance and as a plausible target for designing inhibitors that would block the communication of such resistance among different bacteria, ultimately reducing the window of therapeutic failure in treating bacterial infections.