Remodeling vancomycin yields a victory in the battle against bacteria

The continued emergence of bacteria that are resistant to commonly used antibiotics is a serious danger to public health (1, 2). Policies such as incentivizing the development of new antibiotics (3) and restricting the use of currently effective antibiotics (4) can slow the march of resistant bacteria. Nonetheless, scientific breakthroughs must accompany such actions of governments and international organizations. Recently, a significant advance in the battle against bacteria has been achieved. In PNAS, Okano et al. (5) report the discovery of a new antibiotic that functions via three synergistic modes of action. Importantly, the ability of this agent to attack bacteria using multiple mechanisms dramatically slows the development of resistance. Vancomycin (Fig. 1) is the prototypical member of the glycopeptide family of antibiotics. Its mode of action involves binding to bacterial cell wall precursor peptides that terminate in a d-Ala-d-Ala sequence. This binding prevents transpeptidase enzymes from cross-linking these strands, thereby impeding the formation of the peptidoglycan protective layer that is critical to the integrity of the bacterial cell wall (6). Despite almost 60 … [↵][1]1Email: scastle{at}chem.byu.edu. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1