Drug Resistant Bacteria and Pili

[LibbyB]

My partner and I are seriously thinking about doing a project on drug-resistant bacteria. Our idea is to somehow target the Pili of the cell and either brake it or just keep the protiens from forming them at all to stop the resistant bacteria from transfering their resistant DNA to other bacteria. This would just be a small way of limiting the growth of the resistant populations. We've done quite a bit of research already on bacteria and haven't found a meathod like this yet, which could be good if we're blazing a new trail, or bad if it means it isn't possible. Is it possible?[/b]

[carolinethorn]

Sounds like an interesting project. I have absolutely no idea if it would work or not, I am not a microbiologist, but I do know about pharmacology and designing experiments, doing background research and the scientific method. Drug discovery is a very complex process and takes a lot of smart people many years to get a sucessful drug, and it involves a lot of failures along the way, so even if you havent come up with the next blockbuster, learning about the process of drug discovery is a good thing to do.
I have a bunch of questions for you to think about and that will hopefully help you decide if this is a good idea for a drug and maybe also if its a good idea for a project.

1. Do all bacteria have pili or only some?
if only some of them do, are they usually bacteria that are harmful or disease causing?

2. What do pili do? what are their function? is it an essential function? how does its function relate to the essential features of living organisms (movement, respiration, sensitivity, growth, reproduction, excretion, nutrition)

3. what makes a good antibiotic drug? you mention you have looked at some - what do they target and why? (hint - what are the differences between human cells and bacteria cells)

4. what is the pilus made of? is it a substance that is used for other parts of cells? or other types of cells?

5. how might you target the pili? (very difficult question)

6. how would you measure the success of your drug?

best of luck,
Caroline

[James]

This is an interesting question that has been visited by microbiologists and still is being visited. There are drugs that can target the pili proteins stacking and full formation of pili. However, you may also want to broaden your question. Pili and flagella may have similar properties in formation and protein requirements. If targeting pili, will that also have an adverse affect on flagella formation also? What cells use pili (in addition to bacteria) and flagella? Would targeting pili solely destroy bacteria mobility? Would it have adverse affects on other types of cells? This can be a very interesting experiment if you can write up a creative hypothesis.

Best,

James