NIAID Targets Transport System as Lyme Disease Treatment

https://www.niaid.nih.gov/news-events/lyme-transport?utm_campaign=+60661017&utm_content=&utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery&utm_term= NIAID scientists and colleagues are investigating a potential treatment strategy against Lyme disease that would directly suppress Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacterium that causes the disease. If successful, their idea could reduce or end aggressive broad-spectrum antibiotic treatments that can be drawn-out and destroy the body’s helpful bacteria. The study appears in Frontiers in Antibiotics from scientists at NIAID’s Rocky Mountain Laboratories and Purdue University. Their strategy involves the oligopeptide (Opp) transport system that most bacteria use as a secondary nutrition route to move small protein-like peptides through the bacteria. But B. burgdorferi depends on the Opp system for survival, growth, and replication. They subsequently hypothesized that if they could impede the Opp system, maybe the bacterium would stop growing and die. They tested the theory by screening 2,240 chemical compounds from a commercial library used for small-molecule drug discovery and found two compounds that bound to an Opp system protein and significantly slowed B. burgdorferi growth. Next the scientists plan to screen more compounds, hoping to optimize binding to different Opp proteins (there are five to investigate) while still hindering B. burgdorferi growth.