Incomplete dose regimen, self prescription and indiscriminate disposals let them develop resistance. One of the ways by which antibiotics work is by inducing heavy metal (such as silver, copper, manganese etc) toxicity. So bacteria have developed methods to eliminate heavy metals. They have special pumps called efflux pumps, that are made up of proteins.
These pumps are no different from the pumps we know of, it is as though our pumps are inspired by that of bacteria's. There are three components in the bacterial pump, one of them called CusA. It is a protein, 12 units of which are packed into one pump. Scientists have been trying to determine the way this pump works, one important clue missing was 3-D structures of CusA.
Recently, scientists have determined the 3-D structures of CusA. CusA helps in transporting heavy metals out of bacterial cell thereby letting bacteria survive antibacterials. If we know how CusA is structured, we could design drug molecules that can overcome (alter the structure of the pump, altering heavy metal expulsion) the drug resistance.
The other side of the coin is if we know how the pump works, one fine day we may be able to overcome sever heavy metal toxicity in developing nations. Heavy metal toxicity caused by Mercury, Cadmium, Arsenic etc causes significant fatalities and organ/mental damages in children in sub-Saharan Africa and Indian subcontinent.
The other interesting story published today is regarding insecticide resistance in mosquitos. Countries like Uganda where ~12 million people are affected by Malaria, governments encourage people to use insecticide coated nets to stay away from mosquitos.
Mosquitos are smart, they develop resistance to insecticides. So scientists are putting their brain out to overcome this problem.
Guess what is the biggest constraint researchers dealing with this issue? They can't get enough mosquitos to collect data from! Most of the studies so far suffer from lack of sufficient specimens to justify their data on insecticide resistance.
So researchers have worked out a technique that encourages mosquitos to lay eggs in the lab so that they can be studied.
This, scientists claim, will help them raise huge populations of mosquitos in the lab so they can study their resistance mechanisms better.
Further Reading:
Bacterial resistance
Insecticide resistance
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