SCOTTISH scientists have discovered a chink in the armour of bacteria, which could help win the battle against hospital superbugs and other debilitating conditions.
The breakthrough comes after years of research by teams of "structural studies" academics at St Andrews University and molecular experts at Aberdeen University.
It is believed the discovery could pave the way for new chemicals able to combat po
tentially deadly bugs such as E coli, MRSA and C difficile. Possible applications include the special cleansing of hospital equipment and wards, or helping to make food safer.
Now the search is on to find the chemicals that could kill off the bugs via spray cleaners, handwashes or pills, which could be available for use in ten -12 years' time.
The scientists have worked out a key mechanism that protects bacteria against stress.
All bacteria have tiny channels in their walls which operate like the valve on a pressure cooker – they open to release material when the pressure in a bacterial cell gets too great. If the channel did not open to relieve pressure, the bacteria would explode and die.
Professor James Naismith, who led the St Andrews team, said the joint study showed how these channels open and close.
He said: "The channel senses the pressure inside the bacteria. As a result, the channel alters its shape and creates an opening, releasing the pressure. The motion is just like that of a camera iris and being able to see this motion is an amazing discovery.
"Not only is this a major step forward in scientific understanding of a fundamental process in biology, but it paves the way for the development of new drugs against bacteria. It is vital to the bacteria that the channel fully closes and only opens at the right times as mistakes either way would be fatal.
"New chemicals forcing channels to stay open or shut are likely to kill or, at the very least, greatly slow down the growth of bacteria. Slowing down the growth gives the body's natural defences time to tackle its bacterial invader."
Last night, Professor Ian Booth spoke of his two "eureka moments" when the research, which he began 15 years ago, culminated in success.
He said: "When I started out, everybody told me that these bacteria do not have channels. But we found them, and there's a real sense of a paradigm shift at work here, that people simply were not looking for this opportunity.
"My chance to observe the channels at work came from a group in America which had some evidence channels existed. We took that to the stage where we found the channels opened and shut.
"In 1994, we made a series of mutants which allowed us to produce the mechanism by which the channel would open.
"Then Professor Naismith got involved and 18 months ago we cracked it, when one of the mutants gave us an open structure.
"That was one of the happiest days I have had for a long time. This is the top of the mountain. It opens so many doors for the future.
"You can never get rid of any bacterial species completely. They are literally everywhere. But where we see it making a difference is helping hospitals get cleaner and giving patients more effective treatment.
"We know in broad terms what the properties of these molecules should be, and we will work with chemists to design it."
Professor Booth also paid tribute to Wenjiang Wang, Michelle Edwards and Susan Black who performed the crucial experiments. The research was published yesterday in the journal Science and carried out with the help of a £1.5 million grant from the Wellcome Trust.
Click on the links below to watch video of the chemical changes Link one
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