American scientists from the University of Pennsylvania used artificial intelligence to identify previously unknown formations in the Archean – the most ancient forms of life on Earth, which survived in boiling acid, deep accounts and salt marshes.

Open compounds can contribute to the development of new generation antibiotics. This was reported by the press service of the university.

According to scientists, in order to look for new antibiotics by one molecule, it is like looking for a needle in a haystack. – Artificial intelligence accelerates this process, determining where, probably, needles.

Unlike bacteria and eukaryotes (which include plants, animals and mushrooms), Archeya occupies its own branch in the “tree of life”.

Previous attempts to find new antibiotics were concentrated mainly on fungi, bacteria and animals, the researchers said. – There is a whole other area of life that is waiting for research.

Although archeas under a microscope are similar to bacteria, they are fundamentally different in genetics, cell membranes and biochemistry.

These differences allow them to survive in some of the most extreme media on Earth, from overloaded underwater lanes to hot springs, such as in the Yellauston National Park, the article says.

Since the archea often flourishes when few other organisms can survive – withstand enormous pressure, toxic chemicals and extreme temperatures – their biology has developed unusually:

This makes them a promising, but mainly unused source of new molecular tools, including compounds that can function as antibiotics, but not to act as now used, the article says.

In this study, scientists used the updated version of APEX, an artificial intelligence tool that was originally created to identify potential antibiotics in ancient biology, in particular, in proteins of extinct animals, such as a woolen mammoth.

Having met thousands of peptides – short amino acid chains – with known antimicrobial properties, APEX may predict the likelihood that a certain sequence of amino acids will have similar effects.

The translation of APEX 1.1 to thousands of additional peptides and information about bacteria that cause a disease in humans, the researchers have prepared a tool to predict what peptides in Archaei can inhibit the growth of bacteria.

Scanning 233 types of archea gave more than 12,000 potential antibiotics. Researchers called these molecules “archazins”, which, as chemical analysis showed, differ from the well -known antimicrobial peptides (AMP), in particular, by distributing an electric charge specified in the article.

Then the researchers chose 80 archeasins for testing on real bacteria.

Antibiotics act on the same. Some blows in bacterial membranes, while others block the ability of organisms to produce proteins. Researchers found that, in contrast to the most famous amplifiers that attack the external protective mechanisms of bacteria, archeasins, by the visible, turn off them from the inside, violating the electrical signals that support the life of the cells specified in the article.

In tests against a number of drugs resistant to pathogenic bacteria, 93% of the 80 studied archeasins showed antimicrobial activity, at least, against one bacteria. Then the researchers chose three archeasins for testing on animal models:

• Four days after a single administration, all archeasins ceased to spread bacteria resistant to drugs, which is often purchased in hospitals;
• One of the three compounds has demonstrated activity, comparable to polymixin B, is an antibiotic that is usually used as the last line of protection against infections resistant to drugs.

This study shows that there are many antibiotics in the archaeals who are waiting for their discovery, ”the scientists say. – Since more bacteria develops resistance to affordable antibiotics, it is extremely important to find new antibiotics in non -traditional places to replace them.

Then the researchers plan to strengthen the top so that it can predict antibiotic candidates based on their structure, which potentially increases the accuracy of the tool. Researchers also hope to better understand the long -term efficiency and safety of archeazins in order to attract them to clinical trials in people once.

Source: Racurs