Antimicrobial resistant (AMR) bacteria has been a well-known threat for some time, and the World Health Organization (WHO) and US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have kept a focus on it through the years (among other things…*cough*..Ebola).
But now, Andreas Essig and his colleagues at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich and the University of Bonn in Germany have found a new potentially surprising source of hope for the scary threat of antibiotic resistance.
In a new study published in The Journal of Biological Chemistry, a common inky cap mushroom called Coprinopsis cinerea, which can be found growing straight out of ignored piles of horse dung, has been the subject of research and provides a fascinating genetic history, relevant to antibiotics. What researchers discovered in the fungi is a protein called copsin that has the same effect as traditional antibiotics, but belongs to a different class of biochemical substances.
“Copsin is an exceptionally stable protein,” Essig said in a statement, explaining how the agent not only survives incredible circumstances (such as superheated temperatures) but also slips into bacteria to halt the production of cell walls. “Building the cell wall is the Achilles heel of bacteria.”
Essig and his colleagues have already seen the protein kill pathogens like Listeria – a bacterium that causes food poisoning that is extremely difficult to treat.
Yes, it’s counter intuitive that antibacterial treatment could come from horse dung, not the first place the average person would take a look, but this research is an interesting shift in the AMR issue.
[Photo from flickr user Moyan Brenn]
