Scientists devise new drug, polymers to kill drug resistant bacteria

Scientists have developed a new class of polymers that may kill bacteria without causing antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic resistant microorganisms are one of the most serious risks to global public health. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, antibiotic resistant bacteria cause as many as 2.8 million infections in the United States each year.

As per the statement, Texas A&M University led a collaborative effort that created these novel polymers. This innovative method breaks the bacterial membrane barrier, providing a possible solution to the growing problem of antibiotic resistant microorganisms. “The new polymers we synthesized could help fight antibiotic resistance in the future by providing antibacterial molecules that operate through a mechanism against which bacteria do not seem to develop resistance,” said Dr.

Quentin Michaudel, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and lead investigator of this study, in the press release. The development of the polymers This development entailed the creation of a positively charged molecule that could be stitched together several times to build a huge molecule with a recurring charged pattern.

The AquaMet catalyst was critical in this synthesis due to its capacity to withstand high concentrations of charges while remaining water soluble. After successfully synthesizing the polymers, the scientists evaluated the polymers' efficiency against two common antibiotic resistant bacteria strains, These positively charged polymers demonstrated activity against both Gram positive and Gram negative bacteria, as per the study.

The researchers also tested the toxicity of their polymers on human red blood cells. “A common issue with antibacterial polymers is a lack of selectivity between bacteria and human cells when targeting the cellular membrane. The key is to strike a right balance between effectively inhibiting bacteria growth and killing several types of cells indiscriminately,” said Michaudel.

The team's next goal is to improve the polymers' antibacterial activity, especially their preference for bacterial cells over human cells. “We are in the process of synthesizing a variety of analogs with that exciting goal in mind,” Michaudel added in the The development of these antibacterial polymers offers a promising step in the ongoing battle against antibiotic resistance, potentially improving antibacterial treatments in the near future.

The findings were published in the journal Cationic polymers have been identified as a promising type of antibacterial molecules, whose bioactivity can be tuned through structural modulation. Recent studies suggest that the placement of the cationic groups close to the core of the polymeric architecture rather than on appended side chains might improve both their bioactivity and selectivity for bacterial cells over mammalian cells.

However, antibacterial main chain cationic polymers are typically synthesized via polycondensations, which do not afford precise and uniform molecular design. Therefore, accessing main chain cationic polymers with high degrees of molecular tunability hinges upon the development of controlled polymerizations tolerating cationic motifs (or cation progenitors) near the propagating species.

Herein, we report the synthesis and ring opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP) of N methylpyridinium fused norbornene monomers. The identification of reaction conditions leading to a well controlled ROMP enabled structural diversification of the main chain cationic polymers and a study of their bioactivity.

This family of polyelectrolytes was found to be active against both Gram negative (Escherichia coli) and Gram positive (Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus) bacteria with minimal inhibitory concentrations as low as 25 µg/mL..