An international team of researchers at the University of California, San Diego, in the United States, has discovered that the development of drug-resistant bacteria includes an exploitable vulnerability: the bacteria become more dependent on magnesium to reproduce.
Antibiotic resistance is a major and growing concern, and it is estimated that more than one million people died from drug-resistant infections annually between 1990 and 2021.
This number is expected to rise, as experts expect it to reach two million horrific deaths each year by the middle of the century.
Gurul Saul, a molecular biologist and professor at the University of California, San Diego, said in an interview published by the American magazine Newsweek on November 15, “We are exhausting effective antibiotics, whose rampant use over decades has led to their spread throughout the world, from the pole North to the oceans and groundwater.
The scientific community is working with all its might to develop new antibiotics, as well as promoting the use of existing antibiotics only when needed to slow the development of new drug-resistant bacterial strains.
Why do resistant bacteria not control their bacterial communities?
Saul and his colleagues studied antibiotic resistance in Bacillus subtilis, a bacterium found in both soil and the digestive tract of humans, some sponges, and ruminants.
The team wanted to know why bacteria that acquire antibiotic resistance do not continue to dominate over non-resistant bacteria, as they have a clear key advantage.
To answer this, the researchers focused on ribosomes found in bacteria, which are tiny cellular machines that are key to making proteins, translating genetic codes, and magnesium ions that all cells depend on to survive.
The analysis showed that the ribosomes found in the antibiotic strains of Bacillus spp. require more magnesium than their regular counterparts, to the extent that they compete for these ions with ATP molecules that provide energy to bacterial cells, which ultimately hinders cell growth.
The weak point of antibiotic-resistant bacteria
“We have discovered the weak point of antibiotic-resistant bacteria,” Sol said. “We can take advantage of this point to suppress the establishment of antibiotic resistance without harmful drugs or chemicals.”
The team said a potential next step is to see if it is possible to limit magnesium’s access to resistant bacteria, which essentially means starving out antibiotic-resistant bacteria without harming the good bacteria that are essential to our health.