Novel Drugs Target Tough-to-Treat Bacteria

Researchers described early progress in the development of new agents that target difficult-to-treat Gram-negative resistant bacteria, including one drug already in early human testing that uses a "Trojan Horse" concept.
Gram-negative bacteria acquire iron which is necessary for growth and multiplication, and S-649266 binds to iron. When Gram-negative bacteria acquire iron bound to S-649266, they also absorb S-649266, transporting the drug through the outer membrane into the periplasmic space where it binds to penicillin-binding proteins and disrupts cell wall synthesis, he explained.
This use of the iron uptake system may allow S-649266 to be an effective approach to treat Gram-negative bacterial infections that are not able to be treated by available antibiotics, the researchers said.Other drugs highlighted were:

• AA139 targets the outer membrane of Gram-negatives such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa (Adenium Biotech).
• ASP2397 has potent fungicidal activity against Aspergillus (Astellas Pharma).
• TD-1607 is a glycoprotein-cephalosporin for multidrug-resistant Gram-positive infections (Theravance Biopharma).
• OP0595 is a new series beta-lactamase inhibitor (Meiji Seika Pharma).

  http://www.medpagetoday.com/MeetingCoverage/ICAAC/47560