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ANTIMICROBIAL RESISTANCE

Stop that plasmid

Nature Reviews Microbiology volume 18, pages 264–265 (2020)Cite this article

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Plasmids are one of the key ways by which antimicrobial resistance can spread between bacteria. Plasmids can disseminate resistance determinants such as extended-spectrum β-lactamases (ESBLs) and carbapenemases, which inactivate antibiotics, and inhibiting their spread or replication can help to eliminate them from bacterial populations. Buckner et al. have now developed a medium-throughput screen for compounds that inhibit plasmid spread and identify two antiretroviral drugs used to treat HIV infection as promising plasmid inhibitors.

The authors used this assay to test the transfer of two particularly concerning plasmids, pCT (encoding an ESBL) in Escherichia coli and pKpQIL (encoding a carbapenemase) in Klebsiella pneumoniae. They screened a library of over 1,200 already approved drugs for their ability to inhibit plasmid transmission. After removing known biocides and antibacterials, as well as compounds that reduced growth in the assay, the authors identified seven hits, including abacavir and azidothymidine. Both drugs are nucleoside analogues that inhibit the reverse transcriptase of HIV, and they are in wide clinical use.

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References

Original article

  • Buckner, M. C. et al. HIV drugs inhibit transfer of plasmids carrying extended-spectrum β-lactamase and carbapenemase genes. mBio 11, e03355–19 (2020)

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  1. Nature Reviews Microbiology http://www.nature.com/nrmicro/

    Ursula Hofer

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  1. Ursula Hofer
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Correspondence to Ursula Hofer.

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Hofer, U. Stop that plasmid. Nat Rev Microbiol 18, 264–265 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41579-020-0349-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41579-020-0349-4

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