{"id":22658,"date":"2017-11-14T14:25:43","date_gmt":"2017-11-14T19:25:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/?p=22658"},"modified":"2022-03-16T12:22:21","modified_gmt":"2022-03-16T16:22:21","slug":"lehigh-university-research-bacteria-cell-wall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/lehigh-university-research-bacteria-cell-wall\/","title":{"rendered":"New Research by Lehigh University to \u2018Trick\u2019 Bacteria Into Revealing \u2018Weak Spots\u2019 in Cell Wall"},"content":{"rendered":"

A research team from Lehigh University is spearheading a <\/span>novel approach<\/span><\/a> to tackling antibiotic-resistant bacteria. This approach would essentially \u201ctrick\u201d bacteria into revealing vulnerabilities in its cell wall, a jacket-like structure that surrounds it, so new drugs can be developed to defeat the bacteria. <\/span><\/p>\n

Antibiotic, or antimicrobial, resistance is a growing problem around the world. An estimated <\/span>23,000 American lives<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>700,000 lives worldwide<\/span><\/a> are lost each year as a result of bacterial infections resistant to current antibiotic treatments. <\/span><\/p>\n

Antibiotic resistance occurs when bacterial cells create ways to adapt and evade the drugs designed to kill them. One way bacteria is able to do this is by making changes to the cell wall.<\/span><\/p>\n

The new research is led by <\/span>Marcos Pires<\/span><\/a>, an assistant professor at the university\u2019s Department of Chemistry, who has received a five-year $1.94 million MIRA grant (Maximizing Investigators\u2019 Research Award) to pursue his unique approach to uncover these cell wall changes. <\/span><\/p>\n

Under this approach, Pires and his team induce live bacteria to absorb synthetic cell wall fragments modified with reporter units, which essentially tricks the bacteria into revealing where its cell wall is most vulnerable. <\/span><\/p>\n

By using these synthetic cell wall fragments, the researchers are given great flexibility for installing reporter handles that allow them to observe how bacteria adapts to the challenge of antibiotics. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBy imaging where, when, or how the alterations occur, we get an unprecedented view into how drug resistance emerges,\u201d Pires said.<\/p>\n

One of the researchers\u2019 goals is to identify the cell wall components that bacteria need to successfully adapt, and eventually find ways to inactivate or circumvent them. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we can hope to do is to learn the weakest spot within their escape of the drug being administered to find a way to re-potentiate out antibiotics,\u201d said Pires. <\/span><\/p>\n

Another aspect of the research includes learning more about the way bacteria constructs new cells. For infections to take hold, bacterial cells need to grow and divide, a process known as the \u201cbottleneck\u201d step. This process means, new cell walls must be produced inside the cell and then transported outside of it. <\/span><\/p>\n

Pires and his team will use their technique and attempt to understand this process to discover how bacteria may alter this step to become resistant to antibiotics.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOur ultimate goal is to get a more comprehensive understanding of the biology related to bacterial cell walls so we can understand what tools or mechanisms bacteria have in their disposal to get around our antibiotics,\u201d he said. \u201cWith this information, we imagine that we can better target drug discovery efforts in the future or perhaps reveal drug targets that were previously unexplored.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A research team from Lehigh University is spearheading a novel approach to tackling antibiotic-resistant bacteria. This approach would essentially \u201ctrick\u201d bacteria into revealing vulnerabilities in its cell wall, a jacket-like structure that surrounds it, so new drugs can be developed to defeat the bacteria. Antibiotic, or antimicrobial, resistance is a growing problem around the world. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":22647,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[364,241,230,229,243],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lehigh-university","category-medical-breakthrough","category-news","category-lead-stories","category-health"],"aioseo_notices":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/LeHigh-Bacterial-Cell-Wall.jpg",830,533,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/LeHigh-Bacterial-Cell-Wall-224x144.jpg",224,144,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/LeHigh-Bacterial-Cell-Wall-300x193.jpg",300,193,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/LeHigh-Bacterial-Cell-Wall.jpg",830,533,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/LeHigh-Bacterial-Cell-Wall.jpg",830,533,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/LeHigh-Bacterial-Cell-Wall.jpg",830,533,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/LeHigh-Bacterial-Cell-Wall.jpg",830,533,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Natalie Colarossi","author_link":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/author\/natalie-colarossi\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"A research team from Lehigh University is spearheading a novel approach to tackling antibiotic-resistant bacteria. This approach would essentially \u201ctrick\u201d bacteria into revealing vulnerabilities in its cell wall, a jacket-like structure that surrounds it, so new drugs can be developed to defeat the bacteria. Antibiotic, or antimicrobial, resistance is a growing problem around the world.…","featured_media_src_url":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/LeHigh-Bacterial-Cell-Wall.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}