A team of researchers from different institutions has discovered that biomolecules present in the mother’s milk of Tasmanian devils – carnivorous marsupials found on the island that gives them their name – can help eliminate certain super-resistant bacteria, such as some staphylococci aureus or enterococci that have become immune to many antibiotics. These microorganisms have developed a great resistance even to very aggressive bactericidal compounds, such as vancomycin .
In a study published in the journal Scientific Reports , the scientists point out that they focused on these marsupials because although the young have a very immature immune system during their development , they still survive in their mother’s pouch, an environment practically flooded with bacteria.
“Marsupials have more antimicrobial peptides than other mammals,” says Emma Peel, one of the signatories of the trial, an expert in life sciences at the University of Technology in Sydney. “In Tasmanian devils we find six compounds of this type, while humans, for example, only have one. Other studies have revealed that Tammar wallabies – whose appearance is reminiscent of a small kangaroo – have eight,” he says. .
After obtaining these same molecules in the laboratory, the researchers confirmed that they destroyed the antibiotic-resistant strains, but also others. However, they believe that it is a first step towards the development of drugs that allow to combat them effectively. So far, they say, most antibiotics are made from fungi and plants, so now is the time to try new strategies.
The World Health Organization considers antimicrobial resistance a threat to global public health and warns that “drug resistance is beginning to complicate the fight against HIV and malaria” and that “the success of surgery and chemotherapy would be seen compromised in the absence of effective antibiotics “. Every year, 480,000 people already have, for example, multidrug-resistant tuberculosis.
Image: JJ Harrison via Wikimedia / CC
