HYDERABAD: In a path-breaking discovery, scientists at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) here have come up with a way to inhibit the multiplication of bacteria even before the cell wall begins to grow. The team, led by Dr Manjula Reddy, did this by exploring a different dimension of cell-wall synthesis. They focussed on how the cell governs the synthesis machinery to build the cell wall, then identified the principal players behind this process, and discovered a new mechanism by which the cell regulates the growth of its cell wall.
The team sought to find a way to prevent insertion of new material for formation of a cell wall for bacterial growth, CCMB director Dr Rakesh Mishra said. Speaking to mediapersons on Tuesday, he added that the discovery shows how cell-wall formation can be inhibited in the beginning stage itself, and this can help combat harmful bacteria effectively in the wake of several strains of bacteria developing resistance to antibiotics.
Regular antibiotics target the machinery that creates the bacterial cell wall — a mesh-like structure that is made up of cross-linked sugars and peptides. But Dr Reddy’s research shows how to target cell-wall formation at the beginning itself, earlier than when the present set of antibiotics act.
Scope for a new class of antibiotics: CCMB
The cell wall is fundamental to bacterial growth and division. Its formation involves a collection of proteins, each playing a different role, together creating a mesh. Some proteins cleave the strands of the mesh, and then a second set of proteins stitch together the separated strands with new material. Conventional antibiotics target this last stage of cell-wall synthesis, Dr Mishra explained.
Dr Reddy’s “one-of-its-kind” discovery has the potential to develop a new class of antibiotics to fight bacteria that cause several diseases, the CCMB director added. Dr Reddy said they isolated an enzyme — Endo Peptizyde — that helps in the synthesis of the bacterial cell wall, thus helping the bacteria proliferate and make anti-bodies in the human immune system ineffective.
The new method would help block this process. Researcher Pawan Kumar, who performed the experiments for the research, said 14-to-15 tests were done to establish the accuracy of the results.
The findings of the research will be published in the science journal ‘Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), USA’.