Fighting resistance

MALVERN, PA—Microbial resistance to antibiotics is a growing problem, but rather than develop more powerful drugs that are likely to have more significant side effects, researchers at Chaperone Technologies decided to combine existing antibiotics with compounds that perturb a microbe's ability to respond to stress. In particular, they examined the naturally occurring DnaK-inhibiting peptide pyrrhocoricin and the synthetic derivative CHP-105.

In a poster presented at the recent Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, scientists from Chaperone, the Hershey Medical Center and Laboratory Specialists Inc. looked at the ability of the DnaK inhibitors to enhance the antimicrobial activity of the fluoroquinolone levofloxacin against a variety of microbial species. With the exception of P. aerginosa, each of the microbes was more sensitive to the combined regimen, with levofloxacin given at one-quarter of its minimum inhibitory concentration, over treatment with any of the drugs singly.

In announcing the work, Chaperone President and CEO Kenneth Kovan said: "Co-administration…may prove to have several potential major benefits, such as lowering the necessary therapeutically effective dose; extending the duration of activity of a fixed dose, reducing the likelihood of the development of resistant strains of the infecting organism, and/or expanding the spectrum of activity of the individual agents."