A scanning electron micrograph of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and a dead human immune cell. (credit: NIAID_Flickr/Wikimedia Commons)
By latching onto bacteria and detonating at just the right moment, a new drug could help take out the leading cause of bacterial infections in humans worldwide.
The drug, a deadly combo of an antibody glued to an antibiotic, specifically seeks and destroys Staphylococcus aureus—even the difficult-to-kill, drug-resistant variety, methicillin-resistant staph (MRSA). In mice infected with MRSA, the dynamic duo fought off the infection better than the standard antibiotic treatment of vancomycin, researchers report in Nature. If the findings hold true in humans, the new superdrug could vastly improve the success rate of MRSA infection treatments, which currently fail about 50 percent of the time.
That fail rate is likely linked to staph’s stealthy infection strategy, the authors note. Inside a victim, the bacteria battle immune cells that try to gobble them up. Once sucked into the cells, the bacteria normally get digested into un-infectious bits. But some of the bacteria can dodge death and hide out. Instead of a death chamber, the cells become bacterial getaway cars, leaving killer antibiotics in the dust and giving the germs a ride around the circulatory system to uninfected organs and tissues.
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