Professor Jonathan Heddle’s research team at the Jagiellonian University (UJ)’s Małopolska Biotechnology Centre in Krakow has made a breakthrough discovery regarding the action of albicidin, an antibiotic that is considered the most effective substance against antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
Albicidin is known to be highly effective against E. coli and S. aureus bacteria. (Staphylococcus aureus). These bacteria are known to become increasingly resistant to currently used antibiotics, translating into an urgent need to find new, more effective drugs.
The new antibiotic targets an enzyme found in both plants and bacteria, called gyrase. Under normal circumstances, gyrase immediately fuses the torn parts of the bacteria’s DNA, but albicidin prevents this fusion, resulting in DNA disruption and bacterial death.
Prof Jonathan Heddle’s research team from the UJ made the breakthrough discovery in collaboration with the laboratories of Prof Roderich Süssmuth from the Technical University of Berlin and Dr Dmitry Ghilarov from the John Innes Centre in the UK.
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