Jamming bacterial ‘shredder’ could fight infection
By jamming their ‘paper shredder’, scientists might be able to drown deadly bacteria in their own paperwork.
Researchers from the University of Leeds have identified how this paper shredder works to allow E. coli to keep on top of its day job.
“If we block the ‘shredder’ using genetics in the lab, the bacteria drown in a flood of messages,” said Dr Kenneth McDowall, Associate Professor in Molecular Biology. “The challenge now if to block it with drugs so that bacterial infections in humans can be killed. Our latest results give up a good idea how this can be done.”
The shredder in the harmless version of E. coli is an enzyme called RNas E, which was known to have a role in destroying messenger RNA copied from DNA, although its mechanism was not understood.
The enzyme can cut at many sites internal to messages to prevent them being re-read. This shredding of the message helps explain how bacteria are able to prioritise the thousands of instructions required to replicate.
“This ‘shredder’ helps the bacteria to respond quickly to its environment by making them focus on current rather than old messages,” said Justin Clarke. “We are not working on how to target RNase E with a new type of antibiotic drug. The exciting thing is that RNase E is found in many pathogenic bacteria as well as the harmless strain of E. coli we study in the lab.”
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