Scientists from the College of St Andrews have created peptides that can assist with combating microscopic organisms filling in biofilms, which happen in up to 80% of human diseases.
Treating diseases turns out to be essentially more testing when biofilms are available, as they diminish the viability of anti-infection agents as well as lead to a few unexpected problems. Prosthetic devices, infections from joint replacements, and contamination in catheters and other medical equipment are examples of these complications. Biofilm management and treatment are extremely challenging due to the lack of specific treatments.
Distributed in Nature Synthetic Science on Thursday, June 29, the group of scientists, led by Dr. Clarissa Melo Czekster and Dr. Christopher Harding from the School of Science at St Andrews, in a joint effort with scientists at the College of Dundee, created antimicrobial peptides that can focus on the destructive microscopic organisms filling in biofilms.
The group decided how a key chemical (PaAP) in biofilms works and fostered a progressive new procedure to repress the protein. Their inhibitor is powerful and targets cells from the human microbe Pseudomonas aeruginosa in biofilms. Because Pseudomonas aeruginosa is one of the World Health Organization’s top pathogens of concern and causes chronic infections in cystic fibrosis patients and others, a biofilm inhibitor is needed right away.
Credit: University of St. Andrews
Dr. Czekster and the team at the are currently working to commercialize the technology with the help of the University of St. Andrews Technology Transfer Center and industry partner Locate Bio, a biomedicine spinout of the University of Nottingham. The peptides are currently being tested by the Locate Bio team to see how they interact with the company’s Programmed Drug Release technology to create new orthobiologic products and solutions. The Innovation Move Center has documented a U.K. patent application.
Dr. Czekster said, “Our exploration uncovers how planned inhibitors can focus on a vital protein in bacterial harmfulness, offering sub-atomic bits of knowledge material to aminopeptidases in different living beings.
“This wonderful new examination presents an imaginative technique to target bacterial biofilms and prepare for better treatment of bacterial contamination.”
More information: Christopher John Harding et al, An anti-biofilm cyclic peptide targets a secreted aminopeptidase from P. aeruginosa, Nature Chemical Biology (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41589-023-01373-8
