SAN DIEGO—New Trojan horse antibiotics that are based on molecules made by the bacteria themselves may circumvent some of the most prevalent bacterial resistance processes, and keep physicians one step ahead in the never-ending war against the microbe, according to a presentation made in San Diego during the 2015 Interscience Conference of Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy International Congress of Chemotherapy and Infection.
 
Bacteria need iron for growth and virulence. The concentration of iron in mammalian hosts is much too low to sustain bacteria. Under these extreme iron-deficient events, bacteria produce small molecules called siderophores (iron carriers), which are low-molecular-weight, highly selective, molecules that bind to iron, according to Marvin J. Miller, PhD, the George and Winifred Clark Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana..,.

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