2021-08-29 13:44:20
In this program we are going to delve once again into the worrying issue of the resistance of bacteria to antibiotics. In September 2001, he explained the invention of a new class of antibiotics that could perhaps forever prevent bacteria from developing resistance. Let’s see what he had on that occasion, and then briefly analyze, as is customary, how the situation is and whether or not this promise of antibiotics that bypass resistance has been achieved. In September 2001 he said here the following
What progress has been made since then until now? Well, the truth, in two words, not too many. Although some new antibiotics have been put on the market, none of them is capable of avoiding the development, sooner or later, of bacterial resistance against them. No antibiotic based on the strategy just described is being used for antibacterial control in infected patients.
This does not mean that research has not been done and continues to be done. The problem of bacterial resistance is serious. According to a report, by 2014 around half a million people died in the world as a result of bacterial resistance to antibiotics. If this problem cannot be reduced, it is estimated that the annual death toll will be several million by 2050. As we can see, it is a hidden pandemic.
Research on antibiotics made up of a few amino acids, that is, the so-called antibacterial peptides, have managed to isolate several thousand peptides with antibiotic activity from nature, from plants, insects, crustaceans, animals and even humans. However, as I say, only a few have been able to reach pharmacies and hospitals. These antimicrobial peptides have been included in databases accessible to the scientific community and to anyone who is interested. For example, the Antimicrobial Peptide Database at the University of Nebraska, USAcontains 3,273 peptides, isolated from the six different kingdoms in which living beings are grouped, which I remind you are: bacteria, archaea, protists, fungi, plants and animals.
The study of antibacterial peptides isolated from nature, their characteristics and chemical properties, may perhaps lead to the development of new antibiotics based on these antibacterial peptides. However, if I was optimistic about it twenty years ago, perhaps because of the scientific ingenuity that I still enjoyed in those years, today I am much less optimistic. The reason is that over the years it has also been discovering why antibacterial peptides are not as effective as we would like. There are at least four reasons that explain the limitations of its effectiveness. The first is that they can be easily destroyed by protease enzymes. The second is that in the physiological conditions of the organism, many of these peptides are not effective, because they are designed to function in the external environment, they are part of the arsenal that some organisms use against others in their environment, but they are not adequate to function in inside organisms. The third reason is the high toxicity against the cells of the organism that they should protect and the fourth, the absence of continuous and safe supply systems for these peptides to patients who need them.
These last two reasons lead me to make a reflection that adds to the reasons for pessimism. The reflection is the following. If nature has designed such an important and diverse amount of antibacterial peptides throughout evolution, it is almost certainly because none of them is completely effective. This must be so because throughout evolution many bacteria have been able to develop resistance against many of them.
Additionally, technical problems associated with the continued delivery of the peptides to the sites in the body where they are needed may preclude their usefulness. Our own cells produce antibacterial peptides that can generate collateral damage, that is, damage the cells that produce them or neighboring cells, however, the production of these peptides is always done locally, in response to the detection of some microorganism in the vicinity of the cells, thanks to specific receptors for it that they have. This local production limits collateral damage, that is, the toxicity and mortality of our own cells, for which the peptides can also be toxic, although our cells have their own defense mechanisms against them that bacteria lack. The administration of antibiotics, orally, intravenously, or others, does not occur locally or directed, but systemically, globally throughout the body. This means that the toxicity of these substances increases significantly. Developing ways of administering these substances that make them act where bacteria are detected, but not in other places, increasing the local concentration and decreasing the systemic concentration, is not an easy goal to achieve.
I would like to end with a touch of optimism on this matter, but you will forgive me for not being able to do so and for not being as scientifically naive today as I was in younger years. However, there is no antibiotic against the disease of hope, so I always keep some chronically inside me. I’m sure the same thing happens to you.
Good science and see you soon.
Jorge Laborda (08/22/2021)
Works by Jorge Laborda.
Your defenses against coronavirus
Your defenses against coronavirus
Deflamed immunology: An introduction to the immune system and its pathologies
Deflamed immunology: An introduction to the immune system and its pathologies
Deflamed immunology: An introduction to the immune system and its pathologies
Kilo of Science Volume XII eBook
Kilo of Science Volume XII Paper
Kilo of Science Volume I. Jorge Laborda
Kilo of Science Volume II. Jorge Laborda
Kilo of Science Volume III. Jorge Laborda
Kilo of Science Volume IV. Jorge Laborda
Kilo of Science Volume V. Jorge Laborda
Kilo of Science Volume VI. Jorge Laborda
Kilo of Science Volume VII. Jorge Laborda
Kilo of Science Volume VIII. Jorge Laborda
Kilo of Science Volume IX. Jorge Laborda
Kilo of Science Volume X. Jorge Laborda
Kilo of Science Volume XI. Jorge Laborda
Matrix of homeopathy
Chained circumstances. Ed.Lulu
Chained circumstances. Amazon
One moon, one civilization. Why the Moon tells us that we are alone in the Universe
One moon, one civilization. Why the Moon tells us that we are alone in the Universe
One Moon one civilization why the Moon tells us we are alone in the universe
The thousand and one bases of ADN and other science stories
Adenius Fidelius
The intelligence funnel and other essays
The gods have been cloned
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