The antibiotic resistance It is one of the greatest threats facing humanity together. Bacteria that were previously harmless They are becoming ‘superbacteria‘Immune to our most powerful medications. In this counterreloj career, science is looking towards the past to find a solution of the future: bassoonrapy. A new step to face a big public health problem.
A known technique. This technique, which Use bacteria annihilate virusit could be our best asset, but a new study reveals that bacteria have an ace under their sleeve: a sophisticated defense mechanism that seems taken from a science fiction film.
Researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the University of Melbourne They have discovered An unpublished bacterial strategy that have baptized as “excluding and surviving.” This mechanism allows a bacterium infected with a virus (a bacteriophage or phage) quarantine the invaderamputate the infected section and continue living as if nothing. Understanding how they do is the first step to be able to counteract it.
Microscopic scale. To understand the importance of this finding, you must first understand how the Passopotherapy. The phages are the natural predators of the bacteria and only seek to infect them to take their control.
Literally these phages adhere to the bacterial surface, inject their own genetic material and kidnap cell machinery to create thousands of copies of themselves. Finally, the bacterial cell, full of new viruses, explodes (a process called lysis), releasing the army of phages to infect their neighbors. A process that in the end is exponential and is also used with our own human cells to infect them when we have a virus inside.
The biological process. The problem, as in every arms career, is that bacteria do not stay with crossed arms. The new study, focused on bacteria Bacillus subtilishas identified protein Yjbh as the orchestra director of an ingenious defense.
Specifically, it has been seen that when a bassoon injected its DNA into the bacteria the bacteria andjbh detects it immediately, it joins it and confines it in a tiny area of the cell, usually near one of the poles. Next, the amazing occurs: Yjbh recruits the cell division machinery to build a wall or septum right next to the infected area.
From here the cell is divided asymmetrically, creating a small “mini -free” without a future that contains all the infection and expels it, while the stem cell, now free of the virus, follows its life.
The study. Researchers have used various fluorescent dyes to visualize this process in real time, such as the DAPI, which dyes the DNA, and the FM4-64, which marks the cell membranes, allowing to observe the formation of these exclusion compartments.
The future. This discovery is a perfect example of the evolutionary arms race between bacteria and viruses. And it is that understanding exactly as it can defend a bacteria can anticipate us to create next -generation treatments that attack this type of machinery.
A target. The fact that the YJBH protein is in a wide range of gram-positive bacteria, including notorious pathogens such as Staphylococcus aureus and Listeria Monocytogenesshow that we are not facing an anecdote, but before a very widespread defense mechanism. And now that we know him, we can begin to design strategies to overcome it. The idea would be to develop modified or “cocktails” of phages that can evade or inhibit YJBH’s action, making therapy much more effective.
Although there are still challenges ahead – as the possible response of the human immune system to the phages – this type of research is fundamental. The era of antibiotics could be coming to an end, and we need urgent alternatives. “We hope that when reactivating phage therapy we can contribute to non -antibiotic treatments for infections,” concludes Ghosal. “After 100 years, it is time to reconsider the benefits of phage therapy.”
Images | CDC
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