Physicists pinpoint a simple mechanism that makes bacteria resistant to antibiotics

Physicists at McMaster University have for the first time identified a simple mechanism used by potentially deadly bacteria to fend off antibiotics, a discovery which is providing new insights into how germs adapt and behave at a level of detail never seen before. The findings, published today in the journal Nature Communications Biology, could have implications in the global battle against antibiotic resistance, enabling the design of better, more effective drugs to fight infection. "There are many, many bacteria out there and so many antibiotics, but by proposing a basic model that applies to many of them, we can have a much better understanding on how to tackle and predict resistance better," says Maikel Rheinstädter, a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at McMaster and lead author of the study. Researchers examined how the membranes of bacteria interacted with the antibiotic polymyxin B (PmB), which is commonly used to treat urinary tract infections, meningitis, blood and eye infections. They concentrated on PmB because it was once considered the strongest drug of its kind, a last line of defense for physicians when nothing else worked. That failsafe status came into question in 2016, when Chinese scientists discovered a gene that allowed bacteria to become resistant even to polymyxins.