In the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic, mRNA-based vaccines have impressively demonstrated their potential. Using this technology, scientists were able to rapidly develop and bring to market vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 that have been extremely effective at protecting millions of people against severe disease progression of COVID-19 or even death.
However, RNA-based medicine can be used to combat more than just viruses. Among others, it can also be considered as a candidate for a new type of antibiotics that can be used to treat bacterial infections in a tailored manner.
Which prerequisites these active agents need to fulfil and how they work in the bacterium — this has been investigated by researchers from the University of Würzburg (JMU). Teams from the Institute of Molecular Infection Biology (IMIB) and the Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research (HIRI) were involved. They present the results of their work in the current issue of Nucleic Acids Research.
Traditional antibiotics are increasingly failing
“The number of antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains is growing worldwide; treatments with conventional active agents are failing more and more. We therefore urgently need novel drugs to combat these pathogens in a targeted and effective manner.” This is how Professor Jörg Vogel describes the background of the work that has now been published. Vogel is the Chair of Molecular Infection Biology I at JMU and Director of HIRI as well as the corresponding author of this study.
Programmable mRNA antibiotics could be the solution to this problem. The strategy is simple: “We introduce short chains of bases into bacteria that are designed to exactly match specific genes,” explains Vogel. When these fragments bind to the corresponding mRNA of the gene of interest, they abrogate protein production and, ideally, the bacterium dies as a result.
Source: Read Full Article