According to the competent publication “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America” (PNAS), Chinese scientists have discovered a mollusk whose body produces a powerful antibiotic.
Over the past 20 years, biologists have recorded the emergence of dozens of microbial strains that have proven to be highly resistant. to the action of antibiotics. There is a real prospect that all such drugs will lose their effectiveness, which may adversely affect medicine and animal husbandry.
An international team of biologists led by a professor at the Institute of Oceanology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing has made a big breakthrough in solving this problem by studying the life of Meretrix petechialis. Studies and experiments of scientists have revealed an interesting detail – a previously unknown gene is present in the DNA of mollusks, which encodes an enzyme responsible for the production of a close analogue of erythromycin, one of the antibiotics of the macrolide class.
“Our discovery not only expands the arsenal of protective agents that protect animals from infections, but also opens up new horizons for the creation and production of antibiotics,” the team of researchers said. Chinese scientists hope that in the future, these mollusks can become a kind of living factories of antibiotics that will allow the development and production of new forms of macrolides.
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