Bacterial intimacy insights could help tackle antimicrobial resistance

Researchers have uncovered new details about how bacteria hook up to exchange DNA that helps them resist antibiotics.

One of the primary ways harmful bacteria acquire resistance to antibiotics is by receiving DNA from other bacteria that are already resistant. This DNA exchange is made via a process called conjugation, akin to bacterial sex, whereby two bacteria form an intimate attachment, and one transfers a packet of DNA to the other.

This is important because antibiotic resistance is causing previously treatable diseases to become deadly. The O’Neill review, commissioned by the UK government, estimates that 10 million deaths could be attributed to infection with resistant bacteria by 2050. Understanding the molecular basis of bacterial conjugation could enable researchers to develop new approaches that slow the spread of antimicrobial resistance.

Since the discovery of bacterial conjugation in the 1940s, much research has been done to show how two bacterial cells initially contact each other in preparation for transfer. However, the mechanism by which donor and recipient bacteria made the intimate attachments that enabled efficient DNA transfer was unknown.

Now, a team led by Imperial College London researchers have uncovered the proteins that mediate these intimate contacts. The results are published today in Nature Microbiology.

The new knowledge could also help scientists predict the spread of emerging resistance amongst bacterial pathogens, as it demonstrates why some DNA packets, called plasmids, are found in specific bacterial species.

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