Hepatitis drugs increase the effectiveness of antibiotics and limit antibiotic resistance

A new study published in the journal Cell Chemical Biology by New York University researchers shows that FDA-approved hepatitis C drugs can increase the sensitivity of bacteria to antibiotics and reduce the possibility of antibiotic resistance

"Telaprevir is the first clinically approved compound that has been shown to inhibit chaperone function in bacteria," said Tania Lupoli, assistant professor of chemistry at New York University and senior author of the study

From single-celled bacteria to humans, there are partners in almost every cell of every organism

In this study, researchers tried to identify small molecules that can shut down the chaperone function in disease-causing bacteria

They found an antiviral drug called telaprevir.

Chaperones can also stabilize the proteins that cause antibiotic resistance in cells, so blocking the chaperone function with telaprevir reduces the resistance of mycobacteria to the first-line tuberculosis drug rifampicin

"In the future, we envision that small molecule chaperone inhibitors can be used in combination with antibiotics to increase the effectiveness of antibiotics and reduce resistance," Lupoli said

When researchers are excited to discover that telaprevir is a chaperone inhibitor, they are continuing to explore hundreds of telaprevir analogs—compounds with similar molecular structures—to determine whether other analogs bind more closely to their partners.

Lupoli said: "Our work provides a small but growing list of small molecules that hinder the function of partners, and provides a promising avenue for ongoing research, namely, when antibiotics are used, telaprevir and similar Things can make a difference