Prof. Suerbaum and his team at Pettenkofer Institute made an important discovery. As a supplement or alternative to conventional antibiotic therapies, a kind of shackle is to be put on one of the most widespread bacterial pathogens, Helicobacter pylori.
This is because the bacterium depends on being able to move in the viscous environment of the stomach mucus. The scientists have now succeeded in identifying substances that inhibit the formation of the flagella essential for locomotion – like a shackle or leg iron.
These new active substances are immensely important in view of the bacterium’s increasing resistance to the antibiotics currently available. “The substances we call antimotilins could be a supplement or alternative to conventional antibiotic therapies and in the long term help to reduce the development of antibiotic resistance,” explains Prof. Sebastian Suerbaum, Chair of Medical Microbiology at the Max von Pettenkofer Institute and first author of the publication.
The publication and a good article on it can be read on the internet.
