Work

Antibiotic discovery is a walk in the park

Year: 2016

Type: article

Abstract: Can you imagine New York’s Central Park as a source of the next generation of antibiotics that can treat hundreds of millions of people? The work by Charlop-Powers et al. in PNAS (1) suggests this possibility. Antibiotic-resistant microbes pose one of the main health threats of the 21st century (2). According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more people die today of bacterial infections than HIV (3) and more people will die of bacterial infections than cancer by 2050 (4). Because antibiotic resistance is a global threat that affects hundreds of millions of people worldwide (5), it has become a key issue for the White House and the United Nations. In 2015, the White House developed an action plan to combat antibiotic resistance and the General Assembly of the United Nations had a high-level meeting addressing worldwide antibiotic resistance (6, 7). Most (∼75%) of today’s antibiotics are derived from natural products (2, 8). Penicillin was isolated from a fungus, and azithromycin, commonly prescribed in the form of a Z-Pak, was isolated from a bacterium (8). The period from the 1930s through the 1980s represented the “Golden Age” for the discovery of antibiotics. Since 1975, very few antibiotics have emerged (rare exceptions include vancomycin and daptomycin), and some pathogens are resistant to all known antibiotics. To combat these “superbugs,” researchers are exploring new natural sources that were missed in previous screens (3). Exotic areas, usually in regions of the planet minimally impacted by people and with high biodiversity, such as rainforests or coral reefs, are most often explored for natural sources of next-generation antibiotics. Charlop-Powers et al. (1) extracted DNA from the environment, followed by high-throughput sequencing of its genetic instructions, to reveal that your local park is an untapped resource with enormous potential for discovery … [↵][1]1To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: pdorrestein{at}ucsd.edu. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1

Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1618221114

Authors: Louis-Félix Nothias, Rob Knight, Pieter C. Dorrestein

Institution: University of California San Diego

Language: English

Topic: Microbial Natural Products and Biosynthesis

Subfield: Pharmacology (medical)

Field: Medicine

Domain: Health Sciences

SDG: Good health and well-being

Open Access status: green

Funder: Alfred P. Sloan Foundation