Researchers find new approach to fight against 'superbugs'

A new study has provided a deeper insight into the new approaches that the researchers are adopting in order to fight against superbugs.

In recent years, new strains of bacteria have emerged that resist even the most powerful antibiotics. Each year, these superbugs, including drug-resistant forms of tuberculosis and staphylococcus, infect more than 2 million people nationwide, and kill at least 23,000.

MIT engineers have now turned a powerful new weapon on these superbugs. Using a gene-editing system that can disable any target gene, they have shown that they could selectively kill bacteria carrying harmful genes that confer antibiotic resistance or cause disease.

In August, Timothy Lu's, an associate professor of biological engineering, lab reported a different approach to combating resistant bacteria by identifying combinations of genes that work together to make bacteria more susceptible to antibiotics.

Lu hopes that both technologies would lead to new drugs to help fight the growing crisis posed by drug-resistant bacteria.

Researchers decided to turn bacteria's own weapons against them. They designed their RNA guide strands to target genes for antibiotic resistance, including the enzyme NDM-1, which allows bacteria to resist a broad range of beta-lactam antibiotics, including carbapenems. The genes encoding NDM-1 and other antibiotic resistance factors are usually carried on plasmids, circular strands of DNA separate from the bacterial genome, making it easier for them to spread through populations.

The researchers also showed that the CRISPR system could be used to selectively remove specific bacteria from diverse bacterial communities based on their genetic signatures, thus opening up the potential for "microbiome editing" beyond antimicrobial applications.

Another tool Lu has developed to fight antibiotic resistance is a technology called CombiGEM. It might also possible that the genes themselves could be used as a treatment, if researchers can find a safe and effective way to deliver them.

The study is published in the Nature Biotechnology.