A white blood cell ingesting MRSA bacteria shown in a coloured scanning electron micrograph. Wikimedia Commons
A white blood cell ingesting MRSA bacteria shown in a coloured scanning electron micrograph. Wikimedia Commons
A white blood cell ingesting MRSA bacteria shown in a coloured scanning electron micrograph. Wikimedia Commons
A white blood cell ingesting MRSA bacteria shown in a coloured scanning electron micrograph. Wikimedia Commons

Superbug MRSA uses 'double defence' to protect itself against antibiotics


Gillian Duncan
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The superbug MRSA uses a “double defence strategy” to protect itself against antibiotics, researchers have discovered, in a breakthrough that could pave the way for new treatments.

Antimicrobial resistance, one of the world’s biggest health challenges, occurs when bacteria becomes resistant to antibiotics due to their overuse. Studies show around one million people died each year between 1990 and 2021 as a direct result. MRSA, or methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, currently kills more than 120,000 people each year.

Bacteria grows by splitting in two, requiring enzymes to knit its mesh-like cell walls together. Antibiotic drugs such as penicillin and methicillin target these enzymes to stop bacteria from multiplying. MRSA is known to develop a new layer surrounding its cells that allows it to resist exposure to the drugs designed to kill it. But scientists say that process alone is not enough for it to survive.

Researchers at the University of Sheffield discovered that MRSA has found another way to divide and replicate that allows it to grow in the presence of antibiotics – a process they describe as “hiding in plain sight”.

Prof Simon Foster, from the University of Sheffield’s school of biosciences, told The National this previously unknown process “allows a huge jump in resistance level”. “Using the newly discovered mechanism, the bacteria divide in a different way that does not require a key activity ordinarily needed for them to divide and multiply,” he said.

Prof Foster and his colleagues are now using their knowledge to develop drugs to target this defence mechanism. “It is likely that these new compounds will be used in combination with existing antibiotics. They will be adjuvants and target the resistance mechanism itself,” he said.

Prof Jamie Hobbs, from the university's school of mathematical and physical sciences, said the discovery was the result of bringing physics and biology together to understand antimicrobial resistance. “Our research demonstrates the power of an interdisciplinary approach to address the basic mechanisms supporting the physics of life which are of such importance to healthcare,” he added. The study was published in Science.

Changes in antibiotic resistance per 10 per cent change in concentration of PM2·5. The Lancet
Changes in antibiotic resistance per 10 per cent change in concentration of PM2·5. The Lancet

Antibacterial resistance does not just pose a danger to the treatment of bacterial infections. Experts have warned that chemotherapy drugs could also be rendered useless against cancer. Around half of all cancer deaths are related to an infection, a figure likely to rise as existing drugs become ineffective.

Scientists are working to develop new types of antibiotics from surprising sources. During a 2020 expedition off Svalbard, an archipelago hundreds of miles north of Norway, researchers found that compounds in types of bacteria called actinobacteria collected from the Arctic Ocean appeared to be able to combat some harmful forms of E. coli.

Actinobacteria from the soil are the source of seven out of 10 current antibiotics. Scientists say compared to actinobacteria in the soil, those found in the sea may even have stronger antibiotic effects.

Antimicrobial resistance occurs when bacteria becomes resistant to antibiotics due to their overuse. Getty Images
Antimicrobial resistance occurs when bacteria becomes resistant to antibiotics due to their overuse. Getty Images

Bacteria create the substances we use as antibiotics to help them compete against other microorganisms in their natural environment. Any substances released into the oceans are likely to become heavily diluted, so scientists believe ocean-based actinobacteria could produce stronger substances out of necessity, to survive.

“The argument is that in the ocean, compounds need to be more active, more potent, in order to have the same effect on other organisms,” Dr Yannik Schneider, researcher at The Arctic University of Norway in Tromso, previously told The National.

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When Sunday (start time is 3.30am on Monday UAE time)

 

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Attacks on Egypt’s long rooted Copts

Egypt’s Copts belong to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, with Mark the Evangelist credited with founding their church around 300 AD. Orthodox Christians account for the overwhelming majority of Christians in Egypt, with the rest mainly made up of Greek Orthodox, Catholics and Anglicans.

The community accounts for some 10 per cent of Egypt’s 100 million people, with the largest concentrations of Christians found in Cairo, Alexandria and the provinces of Minya and Assiut south of Cairo.

Egypt’s Christians have had a somewhat turbulent history in the Muslim majority Arab nation, with the community occasionally suffering outright persecution but generally living in peace with their Muslim compatriots. But radical Muslims who have first emerged in the 1970s have whipped up anti-Christian sentiments, something that has, in turn, led to an upsurge in attacks against their places of worship, church-linked facilities as well as their businesses and homes.

More recently, ISIS has vowed to go after the Christians, claiming responsibility for a series of attacks against churches packed with worshippers starting December 2016.

The discrimination many Christians complain about and the shift towards religious conservatism by many Egyptian Muslims over the last 50 years have forced hundreds of thousands of Christians to migrate, starting new lives in growing communities in places as far afield as Australia, Canada and the United States.

Here is a look at major attacks against Egypt's Coptic Christians in recent years:

November 2: Masked gunmen riding pickup trucks opened fire on three buses carrying pilgrims to the remote desert monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor south of Cairo, killing 7 and wounding about 20. IS claimed responsibility for the attack.

May 26, 2017: Masked militants riding in three all-terrain cars open fire on a bus carrying pilgrims on their way to the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor, killing 29 and wounding 22. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.

April 2017Twin attacks by suicide bombers hit churches in the coastal city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta city of Tanta. At least 43 people are killed and scores of worshippers injured in the Palm Sunday attack, which narrowly missed a ceremony presided over by Pope Tawadros II, spiritual leader of Egypt Orthodox Copts, in Alexandria's St. Mark's Cathedral. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.

February 2017: Hundreds of Egyptian Christians flee their homes in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, fearing attacks by ISIS. The group's North Sinai affiliate had killed at least seven Coptic Christians in the restive peninsula in less than a month.

December 2016A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt's main Coptic Christian cathedral in Cairo kills 30 people and wounds dozens during Sunday Mass in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory. ISIS claimed responsibility.

July 2016Pope Tawadros II says that since 2013 there were 37 sectarian attacks on Christians in Egypt, nearly one incident a month. A Muslim mob stabs to death a 27-year-old Coptic Christian man, Fam Khalaf, in the central city of Minya over a personal feud.

May 2016: A Muslim mob ransacks and torches seven Christian homes in Minya after rumours spread that a Christian man had an affair with a Muslim woman. The elderly mother of the Christian man was stripped naked and dragged through a street by the mob.

New Year's Eve 2011A bomb explodes in a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria as worshippers leave after a midnight mass, killing more than 20 people.

Indoor cricket in a nutshell

Indoor Cricket World Cup – Sep 16-20, Insportz, Dubai

16 Indoor cricket matches are 16 overs per side

8 There are eight players per team

There have been nine Indoor Cricket World Cups for men. Australia have won every one.

5 Five runs are deducted from the score when a wickets falls

Batsmen bat in pairs, facing four overs per partnership

Scoring In indoor cricket, runs are scored by way of both physical and bonus runs. Physical runs are scored by both batsmen completing a run from one crease to the other. Bonus runs are scored when the ball hits a net in different zones, but only when at least one physical run is score.

Zones

A Front net, behind the striker and wicketkeeper: 0 runs

B Side nets, between the striker and halfway down the pitch: 1 run

Side nets between halfway and the bowlers end: 2 runs

Back net: 4 runs on the bounce, 6 runs on the full

Updated: November 01, 2024, 3:56 PM