The Achilles’ heel of superbugs that survive salty dry conditions

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25250/thescbr.brk698

Keywords:

Superbug, mannitol, drought, salinity, hospital-acquired infection

Abstract

Nosocomial infection has become a serious global challenge in modern healthcare facilities due to the persistence of superbugs. To survive in highly sanitized hospitals, superbugs produce beneficial substances such as mannitol to sustain their growth. We uncovered that a mannitol-producing protein is vital to help the bugs persist in salty and dry conditions, and may be the key to their demise.

Author Biography

Heng Keat Tam, University of South China

Professor

Original article reference

Tam, H.-K., König, P., Himpich, S., Ngu, N. D., Abele, R., Müller, V., & Pos, K. M. (2022). Unidirectional mannitol synthesis of Acinetobacter baumannii MtlD is facilitated by the helix–loop–helix-mediated dimer formation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119(14). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2107994119

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Published

2023-04-19

Issue

Vol. 9 No. 2 (2023): TheScienceBreaker

Section

Microbiology

License

Some rights reserved 2023 Heng Keat Tam

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.