Due to antibiotic resistance, scientists are searching for new methods to destroy such bacteria. Scientists from the University of Toronto have developed novel compounds that trigger bacterial cells to self-destruct. The new form of antibiotics targets a naturally occurring enzyme, caseinolytic protease proteolytic subunit (ClpP), which destroys old or defective proteins and plays an essential role in cellular housekeeping. The new compound kicks the ClpP enzyme into overdrive, destroying proteins and eventually killing its own cells from the inside out. Professor of biochemistry at the University of Toronto, Walid A. Houry, said, “It turns out that the [enzyme] present in cancer cells is also present in bacteria. For this project, the tricky thing was trying to find a way to hit the bacterial ClpP, but not the human ClpP.” The Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan’s (USask) CMCF beamlines enabled Houry’s team to visualize the structural differences between human and bacterial ClpP and understand how their new compounds behaved when attacking ClpP. The group capitalized on the minor structural differences between the human and bacterial enzymes to design compounds that could target harmful bacteria without damaging human cells. This new approach to antibiotics, says Houry, holds great potential for treating bacterial infections. @https://phys.org/news/2024-10-team-antibiotic-bacterial-cells-destruct.amp
