Nanotechnology used to probe effectiveness of antibiotics

23 February 2009

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A group of researchers led by scientists from the London Centre for Nanotechnology, in collaboration with a University of Queensland researcher, have discovered a way of using tiny nano-probes to help understand how an antibiotic is effective against bacteria.

Bacteria such as MRSA (commonly known as Golden Staph) are becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics, posing a major community health problem.

Professor Matt Cooper, the Australian in the team, has joined the Institute for Molecular Bioscience at UQ on a $4 million Australia Fellowship.

Through the fellowship, he will establish a research program in the development of antibiotics and antifungal that are active against drug-resistant pathogens, in particular those responsible for hospital-acquired infections.

“It order to attack this problem we need to understand not only the ways in which bacteria develop and exhibit resistance to antibiotics, but also how new antibiotics can work to kill or slow the growth of resistant bacteria,” Professor Cooper said.

To study antibiotic action, the London team made nano-probes coated with molecules found in bacterial cell walls from normal bacteria and bacteria resistant to antibiotics.

They then added doses of the ‘last resort’ antibiotic, vancomycin, to the system and found that probes from normal bacteria were stressed and changed shape, whereas probes from resistant bacteria were only weakly affected.

These bent probes could be detected with a laser, indicating that the antibiotic was applying a force to the surface. This allowed the researchers to quickly assess the effectiveness of an antibiotic and propose new ways in which antibiotics may be acting to cause the bacteria to burst and die.

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