Researchers have discovered a new compound that fights the bacteria that causes strep throat as well as common antibiotics.
Scientists from the University of Missouri and University of Michigan said the discovery could provide a new weapon in the fight against antibiotic-resistant microbes that have rendered many drugs useless against bacterial infections.
In an article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the scientists said they tested tens of thousands of small molecules to identify a class of chemical compounds that significantly reduced the severity of group A Streptococcus (GAS) bacteria infection in mice.
The newly identified compounds could work with conventional antibiotics, such as commonly prescribed penicillin, and result in more effective treatment for an estimated 700 million people infected with strep and similar illnesses around the world each year.
“We know that 70 percent of bacteria causing infections in the hospital are resistant to at least one of the drugs commonly used for treatment,” said Dr. Hongmin Sun, the study’s lead author and an assistant professor of internal medicine at the University of Missouri. “Rather than killing off the bacteria, this new compound changes the behavior of the bacteria and makes it less harmful.”