Featured Article Academic Journal Main Category: MRSA / Drug Resistance Also Included In: Infectious Diseases / Bacteria / Viruses;Biology / Biochemistry Article Date: 28 Feb 2013 - 0:00 PST

Current ratings for: Superbug's Weak Spot Could Be Its Protein Factory

Biologists Gloria Culver and Keith Connolly came to this conclusion while studying bacterial ribosomes at the University of Rochester in New York. (Connolly has since moved to Harvard Medical School in Boston). They write about their findings in the March print issue of Molecular Microbiology.

For their study, Culver and Connolly thought they might spot a weakness, an "Achilles heel", by examining the internal workings of a particularly nasty superbug, E. coli.

E. coli is normally found in the gut, where it lives quite harmlessly in the abudant garden of intestinal flora. But some strains, if they get into the bloodstream can cause food poisoning, and if they happen to be ones that are also difficult to treat, the infection becomes very serious and potentially life-threatening.

Culver says in a statement that they decided to study ribosomes because "cells and organisms can't live if they don't make proteins, and they can't make proteins if their ribosomes aren't functioning properly".

When they looked at ribosomes in E. coli, Culver and Connolly noticed that two proteins already present in the bacterium's cell, RbfA and KsgA, have to be in balance with each other, or the ribosome machinery won't function.

If there is an imbalance in the two proteins with respect to each other, the ribosomes don't mature properly, to the extent that they can't make proteins, and eventually the cells die.

Culver explains that a healthy ribosome has two compartments that must come together, but only when each one is mature.

Too much RbfA speeds this process up, and can result in an ineffective structure. KsgA binds with the smaller of the two compartments, holding back their union until both parts are ready.

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Superbug's Weak Spot Could Be Its Protein Factory