{"id":1480,"date":"2016-11-03T10:32:18","date_gmt":"2016-11-03T10:32:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/biosciences\/?p=1480"},"modified":"2016-11-03T10:32:18","modified_gmt":"2016-11-03T10:32:18","slug":"enzyme-is-crucial-for-combatting-e-coli-infections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/biosciences\/2016\/11\/03\/enzyme-is-crucial-for-combatting-e-coli-infections\/","title":{"rendered":"Enzyme is crucial for combatting E. coli infections"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"fluorescent-cytochrome\"Research at Kent and the University of Queensland is expected to pave the way for new approaches to kill bacteria that don’t respond to conventional antibiotics.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a paper published by Scientific Reports, Kent\u2019s Dr Mark Shepherd<\/span><\/u><\/a> and colleagues demonstrate the importance of an enzyme, cytochrome bd<\/em>-I, for survival of E. coli<\/em> that is resistant to multiple antibiotics.<\/p>\n

E. coli<\/em> causes serious conditions including sepsis, bladder infections, kidney failure, and dysentery. The human immune system produces nitric oxide to kill invading E. coli<\/em>, and cytochrome bd<\/em>-I is shown to provide significant resistance to nitric oxide during infection.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Since cytochrome bd<\/em>-I is absent in humans, drugs designed to target this enzyme are less likely to be toxic to human cells. In future, targeting cytochrome bd<\/em>-I with new drugs will render antibiotic-resistant bacteria more susceptible to attack from the host immune system.<\/p>\n

Dr Shepherd is Lecturer in Microbial Biochemistry at Kent\u2019s School of Biosciences<\/span><\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2018The cytochrome bd-I respiratory oxidase augments survival of multidrug-resistant Escherichia coli during infection\u2019 <\/i><\/span><\/u><\/a> <\/em>(Mark Shepherd, Maud E. S. Achard, Adi Idris, Makrina Totsika, Minh-Duy Phan, Kate M. Peters, Sohinee Sarkar, Claudia A. Ribeiro, Louise V. Holyoake, Dimitrios Ladakis, Glen C. Ulett, Matthew J. Sweet, Robert K Poole, Alastair G. McEwan & Mark A. Schembri).<\/p>\n

By Sandy Fleming<\/p>\n