Bacteria study could improve antibiotics

COLLEGE STATION, Texas, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- A study of one of nature's most primitive immune systems might lead to new, more effective antibiotics, a U.S. researcher says.

Thomas Wood, professor of chemical engineering at Texas A&M University, is studying how bacteria have developed resistance to antibiotics over millions of years by co-opting the DNA of their natural enemies, viruses, a university release said Thursday.

Viruses attempt to replicate by invading bacteria cells and integrating themselves into the chromosomes of the bacteria. When a bacterium makes a copy of its chromosome, which includes the virus particle, the virus can later replicate itself and kill the bacterium, like a ticking time bomb, Wood says.

But when random, abundant mutations occur within the chromosome of the bacterium, the virus, having integrated itself into the chromosome, is subject to mutation as well, and some of these mutations, Wood says, render the virus unable to replicate.

A mutated bacterium not only overcomes the virus' lethal intentions but is then better equipped to survive, he says.

"Over millions of years, this virus becomes a normal part of the bacterium," Wood says. "It brings in new tricks, new genes, new proteins, new enzymes, new things that it can do.

"With this new viral DNA that has been trapped over millions of years in the chromosome, the cell has created a new immune system," Wood says. "It has developed new proteins that have enabled it to resists antibiotics.

"If we can figure out how the cells are more resistant to antibiotics because of this additional DNA, we can perhaps make new, effective antibiotics," he says.