IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v517y2015i7535d10.1038_nature14098.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A new antibiotic kills pathogens without detectable resistance

Author

Listed:
  • Losee L. Ling

    (NovoBiotic Pharmaceuticals)

  • Tanja Schneider

    (Institute of Medical Microbiology, Immunology and Parasitology—Pharmaceutical Microbiology Section, University of Bonn, Bonn 53115, Germany
    German Centre for Infection Research (DZIF), Partner Site Bonn-Cologne, 53115 Bonn, Germany)

  • Aaron J. Peoples

    (NovoBiotic Pharmaceuticals)

  • Amy L. Spoering

    (NovoBiotic Pharmaceuticals)

  • Ina Engels

    (Institute of Medical Microbiology, Immunology and Parasitology—Pharmaceutical Microbiology Section, University of Bonn, Bonn 53115, Germany
    German Centre for Infection Research (DZIF), Partner Site Bonn-Cologne, 53115 Bonn, Germany)

  • Brian P. Conlon

    (Antimicrobial Discovery Center, Northeastern University)

  • Anna Mueller

    (Institute of Medical Microbiology, Immunology and Parasitology—Pharmaceutical Microbiology Section, University of Bonn, Bonn 53115, Germany
    German Centre for Infection Research (DZIF), Partner Site Bonn-Cologne, 53115 Bonn, Germany)

  • Till F. Schäberle

    (German Centre for Infection Research (DZIF), Partner Site Bonn-Cologne, 53115 Bonn, Germany
    Institute for Pharmaceutical Biology, University of Bonn, Bonn 53115, Germany)

  • Dallas E. Hughes

    (NovoBiotic Pharmaceuticals)

  • Slava Epstein

    (Northeastern University)

  • Michael Jones

    (Selcia, Ongar, Essex CM5 0GS, UK)

  • Linos Lazarides

    (Selcia, Ongar, Essex CM5 0GS, UK)

  • Victoria A. Steadman

    (Selcia, Ongar, Essex CM5 0GS, UK)

  • Douglas R. Cohen

    (NovoBiotic Pharmaceuticals)

  • Cintia R. Felix

    (NovoBiotic Pharmaceuticals)

  • K. Ashley Fetterman

    (NovoBiotic Pharmaceuticals)

  • William P. Millett

    (NovoBiotic Pharmaceuticals)

  • Anthony G. Nitti

    (NovoBiotic Pharmaceuticals)

  • Ashley M. Zullo

    (NovoBiotic Pharmaceuticals)

  • Chao Chen

    (Antimicrobial Discovery Center, Northeastern University)

  • Kim Lewis

    (Antimicrobial Discovery Center, Northeastern University)

Abstract

Antibiotic resistance is spreading faster than the introduction of new compounds into clinical practice, causing a public health crisis. Most antibiotics were produced by screening soil microorganisms, but this limited resource of cultivable bacteria was overmined by the 1960s. Synthetic approaches to produce antibiotics have been unable to replace this platform. Uncultured bacteria make up approximately 99% of all species in external environments, and are an untapped source of new antibiotics. We developed several methods to grow uncultured organisms by cultivation in situ or by using specific growth factors. Here we report a new antibiotic that we term teixobactin, discovered in a screen of uncultured bacteria. Teixobactin inhibits cell wall synthesis by binding to a highly conserved motif of lipid II (precursor of peptidoglycan) and lipid III (precursor of cell wall teichoic acid). We did not obtain any mutants of Staphylococcus aureus or Mycobacterium tuberculosis resistant to teixobactin. The properties of this compound suggest a path towards developing antibiotics that are likely to avoid development of resistance.

Suggested Citation

  • Losee L. Ling & Tanja Schneider & Aaron J. Peoples & Amy L. Spoering & Ina Engels & Brian P. Conlon & Anna Mueller & Till F. Schäberle & Dallas E. Hughes & Slava Epstein & Michael Jones & Linos Lazari, 2015. "A new antibiotic kills pathogens without detectable resistance," Nature, Nature, vol. 517(7535), pages 455-459, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:517:y:2015:i:7535:d:10.1038_nature14098
    DOI: 10.1038/nature14098
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14098
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/nature14098?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nicole M. Revie & Kali R. Iyer & Michelle E. Maxson & Jiabao Zhang & Su Yan & Caroline M. Fernandes & Kirsten J. Meyer & Xuefei Chen & Iwona Skulska & Meea Fogal & Hiram Sanchez & Saif Hossain & Sheen, 2022. "Targeting fungal membrane homeostasis with imidazopyrazoindoles impairs azole resistance and biofilm formation," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-20, December.
    2. Elizabeth M. Bach & Kelly S. Ramirez & Tandra D. Fraser & Diana H. Wall, 2020. "Soil Biodiversity Integrates Solutions for a Sustainable Future," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-20, March.
    3. Bin Ma & Caiyu Lu & Yiling Wang & Jingwen Yu & Kankan Zhao & Ran Xue & Hao Ren & Xiaofei Lv & Ronghui Pan & Jiabao Zhang & Yongguan Zhu & Jianming Xu, 2023. "A genomic catalogue of soil microbiomes boosts mining of biodiversity and genetic resources," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-14, December.
    4. Kalinga Pavan T. Silva & Ganesh Sundar & Anupama Khare, 2023. "Efflux pump gene amplifications bypass necessity of multiple target mutations for resistance against dual-targeting antibiotic," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-14, December.
    5. Josh L Espinoza & Chris L Dupont & Aubrie O’Rourke & Sinem Beyhan & Pavel Morales & Amy Spoering & Kirsten J Meyer & Agnes P Chan & Yongwook Choi & William C Nierman & Kim Lewis & Karen E Nelson, 2021. "Predicting antimicrobial mechanism-of-action from transcriptomes: A generalizable explainable artificial intelligence approach," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(3), pages 1-25, March.
    6. Hiroshi Hamamoto & Suresh Panthee & Atmika Paudel & Kenichi Ishii & Jyunichiro Yasukawa & Jie Su & Atsushi Miyashita & Hiroaki Itoh & Kotaro Tokumoto & Masayuki Inoue & Kazuhisa Sekimizu, 2021. "Serum apolipoprotein A-I potentiates the therapeutic efficacy of lysocin E against Staphylococcus aureus," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-10, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:517:y:2015:i:7535:d:10.1038_nature14098. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.