Increasing the effectiveness of the drug gentamicin

What is it about?

Bacterial resistance to antibiotics has reached alarming proportions; indeed, President Obama has ordered the government to ensure overcoming this resistance by early 2015. These drugs were thought to kill entirely by targeting specific biomolecules. We have discovered that in addition, they kill bacteria by a common mechanism as well, which involves damage to bacteria by oxygen radicals. This paper elucidates this new mechanism for gentamicin; other drugs share similar mechanisms.

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Why is it important?

Bacteria can resist oxygen radicals, thereby resisting the antibiotics. They can do so because they possess enzymes that decompose these radicals by adding electrons to them ("reduction"), as well as enzymes that provide the electrons ("reducing power") which the the decomposers require to destroy the radicals. Our novel identification of these enzymes opens a powerful way to increase the effectiveness of antibiotics: compounds can now be designed that inhibit the enzymes we have identified.