Prolysis developing new MRSA antibacterials

Prolysis is aiming to develop new antibacterial compounds to tackle life-threatening, drug-resistant infections caused by staphylococci, including MRSA. MRSA is fast becoming untreatable with the currently available antibiotics.

The compounds being developed by Prolysis block the ability of the MRSA bacteria to divide and multiply. They do this by inhibiting the function of the bacterium’s FtsZ protein, which is essential for cell division. FtsZ is not found in humans so targeting a unique protein like this should reduce the likelihood of side-effects in patients.

Because of the novel mode of action of the new class of compounds, the levels of resistance in the bacterial population should be extremely low if a new drug was to emerge from this program.

“The antibiotic that we are developing is far more selective than those currently in use targeting only staphylococcal infections,” said Dr Lloyd Czaplewski, director of Research at Prolysis. “Other, broad-spectrum antibiotics tend to kill the patient’s natural bacteria, leaving them open to secondary infection by other pathogenic bacteria, for example clostridium difficile.”

Given the urgent need for new antibacterials to tackle staphylococcal infections, Dr Czaplewski believes that the research could result in a new medicine being fast-tracked into clinical evaluation by 2009.