New target for antibiotics promises treatment for multi-drug resistant superbugs

The World Health Organization lists bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics as one of the top 10 global health threats. Therefore, researchers are looking for new antibiotics to counter this resistance. Adéla Melcrová, biophysicist at the University of Groningen (the Netherlands), and her colleagues have discovered that the relatively new antibiotic AMC-109 affects the cell membrane of bacteria by disordering its organization. This differs from most other antibiotics and could open up new directions for future treatment and drug development. The team's results were published in Nature Communications on 7 July.