Enzyme to arrest bacteria cell growth discovered

  1. Scientists at the Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology (CCMB) have discovered a new enzyme which helps in breaking cell walls of bacteria. The study has been published in the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences, USA.
  2. The discovery could help in providing new antibiotic drugs to combat anti-bacterial resistance. Antibiotics are medicines used to prevent and treat bacterial infections
  3. Anti-bacterial resistance is a subset of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). AMR is the ability of a microorganism (like bacteria, viruses, and some parasites) to stop an antimicrobial (such as antibiotics, antivirals and antimalarials) from working against it.
  4. Anti-bacterial resistance has become major threat to global health. Infections such as pneumonia, tuberculosis, gonorrhoea, and salmonellosis have become harder to treat as standard antibiotics used to treat them has become less effective.