SMART researchers discover unique lysin that kills deadly multidrug-resistant bacteria

• Lysin is an enzyme produced by bacteriophage that has shown potential as an alternative to antibiotics, especially against drug-resistant bacteria

• Discovery of Abp013 will help researchers to design lysins with better antibacterial efficacy, especially against multidrug-resistant bacteria

• As bacterial infections such as pneumonia and meningitis claim more lives each year due to growing resistance to antibiotics, the development of new alternatives to fungicides is critical

SINGAPORE - Researchers from the Interdisciplinary Research Group (IRG) on Antimicrobial Resistance at the MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART), together with collaborators at Nanyang Technological University, have identified a new bacteriophage lysin — —Abp013, which can be used as an alternative antimicrobial agent against two of the most deadly bacteria: Acinetobacter baumannii and Klebsiella pneumoniae

Lysobacteria - enzymes produced by bacteriophages - show great potential as a new class of antibacterial agents, as their properties allow them to rapidly and directly attack key structural components of bacterial cell walls and in the process reduce bacterial resistance.

Over the past few decades, the inappropriate and widespread use of antibiotics has led to the emergence of antimicrobial resistance—a phenomenon in which bacterial strains develop mechanisms to become resistant to drugs designed to kill them

"Antibacterial resistance remains a growing threat to humanity, with an increase in the number of people dying from superbug infections each year

Lysin is very effective against Gram-positive bacteria - Gram-positive bacteria do not have an outer lipid membrane and are therefore easily killed by lysin

In a paper titled "A novel bacteriophage Lysin Abp013 against Acinetobacter baumannii" published in the medical journal Antibiotics, the SMART AMR team reveals their differences in Abp013's ability to efficiently acquire and kill various bacterial strains found

Acinetobacter baumannii and Klebsiella pneumoniae are superbugs that cause a variety of potentially life-threatening infections, such as pneumonia and meningitis, especially in sick and immunocompromised populations

Abp013 is the first Gram-negative lysin discovered to exhibit host selectivity

In the future, the researchers will further study the crystal structure of this novel lysine and understand its unique underlying mechanism

SMART AMR has been developing custom targeting methods for bacteria using lysogens, and these efforts have received early support from the SMART Innovation Center