Biological engineers discover new antibiotic candidates
The human body produces many antimicrobial peptides that help the immune system fend off infection. Scientists hoping to harness these peptides as potential antibiotics have now discovered that other peptides in the human body can also have potent antimicrobial effects, expanding the pool of new antibiotic candidates. In the new study, researchers from MIT and the University of Naples Federico II found that fragments of the protein pepsinogen, an enzyme used to digest food in the stomach, can kill bacteria such as Salmonella and E. coli. The researchers believe that by modifying these peptides to enhance their antimicrobial activity, they may be able to develop synthetic peptides that could be used as antibiotics against drug-resistant bacteria. “These peptides really constitute a great template for engineering. The idea now is to use synthetic biology to modify them further and make them more potent,” says Cesar de la Fuente-Nunez, an MIT postdoc and Areces Foundation...
