Inhibition of the respiratory chain of Helicobacter pylori allows for pathogen-specific antimicrobial activity
New publication by research groups Prof. Dr. R. Haas and Dr. W. Fischer
The increasing spread of resistance against antibiotics represents one of the most urgent challenges in infection medicine. Together with other bacteria, the World Health Organization has thus ranked Helicobacter pylori, the causative agent of diseases such as peptic ulcers or gastric cancer, as a high-priority pathogen for development of novel antibiotics. The LMU microbiologists Prof. Dr. Rainer Haas and Dr. Wolfgang Fischer, together with several collaboration partners and with support by the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF), have now been able to show that the cellular respiration of these bacteria is extremely sensitive towards inhibitors of the docking site of quinone co-factors within respiratory complex I. Since other bacteria, including typical representatives of the intestinal microbiota, are much less susceptible to such compounds, this molecular target may provide a high potential for development of new drugs with pathogen-specific activity, if an in vivo efficacy can be shown.
The results of this study have been published in the journal Cell Chemical Biology.