Researchers have found a novel approach to drug discovery by tapping into the symbiotic relationship between bacteria and a toxic bird species from New Guinea. The study, published in Nature Communications, highlights the potential of microbial communities (microbiota) as a source of new antimicrobial compounds to combat the growing threat of antibiotic resistance.
Uncovering Nature’s Antimicrobial Treasure Trove
A team of researchers, led by Professor Christine Beemelmanns from the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS), has identified two new classes of bacteria that produce antibiotics in symbiosis with swine-containing and toxic New Guinea exports. TEKESKA, FLICKRCJK5 is a small forest-dwelling songbird from New Guinea known for its diet of toxic insects, which contains the neurotoxin batrachotoxin found in the feathers.
While the bird’s ingested toxin is different, these newly found antimicrobial compounds are made by bacteria themselves living in a gland of the bird’s skin–the brush gland. These gregarious soil bacteria, from the genus Amycolatopsis, produce pachycephalamides and demiguisines, compounds that have shown inhibitory effects on keratinolytic bacteria and fungi responsible for dermatomycoses/necrotising dermatoses common in the skin and feather cover of birds.
Harnessing the Power of Microbial Interactions
These discoveries illustrate the vast untapped diversity of natural products available in microbial communities for drug development. Using the symbiosis between the regent whistler and its bacteria as a model, the researchers focused on rediscovering bioactive materials potentially attractive for novel anti-infective therapy.
Symbiosis: a wealth of new molecules”If we can find these entirely new molecules in the microbiome of just one bird, it gives us an idea of what a resource symbiotic relationships could be for novel natural products,” says study first author Elena Seibel. “Everything that lives next to each other interacts. For microorganisms, it would be a kind of communication carried out with the aid of chemical signals.
Fighting the Global Resistance Challenge
Identification of these novel natural products is highly important in the context of emerging antimicrobial resistance. Traditional antibiotics are losing their efficacy against resistant pathogens, making it urgent to move toward innovative therapeutic solutions.
“Out of the treasure trove of symbiotic microorganisms, there is a vast potential for developing new therapeutic strategies to treat infections, and thus counteract the worldwide resistance crisis”, Beemelmanns emphasized. They then sequenced the genetic blueprints for these natural products, which collate with their expected symbiotic origin between birds and bacteria.
That is the core of Beemelmann’s research, that an entirely new class of drugs is to be discovered here, better by making use of microbial communities as a source. Her group further investigates the hidden capability of microbiota to find brand-new responses to infection and extreme antibiotic resistance.
