The future is bright for gold-based antibiotics

New research presented at the European Conference on Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) in Copenhagen, Denmark (April 15-18) this year has identified several gold-based compounds with potential to treat “multidrug-resistant superbugs.”

With all 19 compounds tested effective against at least one hard-to-treat bacteria and some effective against many, the Spanish researchers say the gold-based drugs have great potential as new antibiotics.

Drug-resistant infections kill an estimated 700,000 people annually globally, and the number is expected to rise to 10 million by 2050 if no action is taken The World Health Organization (WHO) classifies antibiotic resistance as one of the biggest threats to health the public. humanity.

However, development of new antibiotics has stalled and the few new antibiotics that are developed are mainly derivatives of existing treatments.

Gold is known to have antibacterial properties, which makes gold metallic antibiotics—compounds that contain a gold ion in their core—a new and interesting approach.

To learn more, Dr. Sara M. Soto-González, of the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, Barcelona, ​​Spain, and colleagues studied the activity of 19 golden compounds against a group of multidrug-resistant bacteria isolated from patients.

All complexes belong to the same family but have slightly different structures.

The six bacteria studied were: methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA, which causes skin and other infections), Staphylococcus epidermidis (which can cause catheter-related infections), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (which causes infections including pneumonia), Stenotrophomonas maltophilia (pneumonia and other infections), Acinetobacter baumannii (blood and urinary tract infections, pneumonia) and Escherichia coli (blood and urinary tract infections, pneumonia).

All studied strains were multidrug resistant. Four (S. aureus, P. aeruginosa, A. baumannii, E. coli) are on the World Health Organization’s list of “priority pathogens” that are resistant to antibiotics – meaning they are among the bacteria considered to pose the greatest risk to human health. . Multidrug-resistant S. maltophilia bacteria have been found in the lungs of people with cystic fibrosis.

In tests, 16/19 (84%) of the gold complexes were highly effective against MRSA and S.

Another 16 complexes were effective against other bacteria, all of which were Gram-negative. Gram-negative bacteria have greater endogenous resistance to antibiotics and the need for new therapies is particularly urgent.

Gold pools use a variety of technologies to kill bacteria. They stop enzymes from working, disrupt bacterial membrane function and damage DNA. Crucially, this multimodal mechanism should prevent the development of antimicrobial resistance.

“All of the gold compounds were effective against at least one of the bacterial species studied and some showed potent activity against several multidrug-resistant bacteria,” concludes Dr. Soto-Gonzalez.

“It is particularly exciting to see that some of the gold complexes were effective against MRSA and multidrug-resistant A. baumannii, as there are two major causes of hospital-acquired infections.”

“The type of gold complexes we studied, known as gold(III) complexes, are relatively simple and inexpensive to make. They can also be easily modified and thus provide wide scope for drug development.”

“With research on other types of gold antibiotics also providing promising results, the future is bright for gold-based antibiotics.”