According to new research from the University of Illinois Chicago, a new antibiotic that works by disrupting two different cellular targets would make it 100 million times more difficult for bacteria to evolve resistance. In a new article in Nature Chemical Biology, researchers probed how a class of synthetic drugs called macrolones disrupt bacterial cell function to fight infectious diseases. Their experiments demonstrate that macrolones can work two different ways—either by interfering with protein production or corrupting DNA structure. Because bacteria would need to simultaneously implement defenses to both attacks, the researchers calculated that drug resistance is nearly impossible. The antibiotic hits both targets at the same concentration, then the bacteria lose their ability to become resistant by acquiring random mutations in any of the two targets. @ https://phys.org/news/2024-07-dual-action-antibiotic-bacterial-resistance.html
