UNM to study 2 deadly bacteria

Many living cells protect themselves by pumping out harmful toxins, and some hard-to-treat bacterial infections use the trick to defeat antibiotics.

Researchers at the University of New Mexico received an $8.4 million federal contract in November to study two deadly bacteria and find ways to combat them.

The work will focus on finding ways to damage the “efflux pumps” that allow bacterial cells to rid themselves of antibiotics, said George Tegos, a UNM professor leading the research team.

The U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency, which is funding the work, is interested in the bacteria because both potentially can be weaponized.

“Both bugs can be used as biological weapons,” Tegos said of the bacteria, Francisella tularensis and Burkholderia pseudomallei.

But the work also has potential uses in the civilian world because many drug-resistant bacteria use efflux pumps to expel antibiotics, said Tegos, a professor in the UNM School of Medicine department of pathology.

The best known is MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus — a drug-resistant bacteria responsible for dangerous infections in humans. Tegos is seeking additional funding to study ways to defeat the efflux pumps in MRSA and other bacteria.

A key goal of the contract is to develop therapeutic drugs for the two bacteria, both of which have the potential to cause deadly diseases in humans.

Francisella tularensis causes tularemia, a disease found on many parts of the world that is spread by ticks and deer flies.

Burkholderia pseudomallei causes the disease melioidosis, which has sickened U.S. soldiers in Asia, where the disease is endemic, Tegos said.

“They need to have a therapeutic in their arsenal to be able to treat patients really fast,” he said.

Both bacteria have highly evolved pumps that recognize many different chemicals, he said. They “are spitting out antibiotics, if you even try to treat them with antibiotics.”

UNM researchers plan to screen some 35 million chemical compounds in search of those that inhibit efflux pumps in the bacterial cells, Tegos said. The study later will test the effectiveness of the compounds in mice.

Another key aim is to better understand how the bacteria cause disease and point the way for new ways to fight them.

“What about the next generation of therapeutics?” Tegos said. “The bugs are evolving, and you are trying to stay ahead of them.”
— This article appeared on page C01 of the Albuquerque Journal