Life - saving slush

The salvation of the world is in moon milk

Polina Vinogradova, "Russian Planet"

Siberian scientists have found previously unknown to science strains of actinobacteria in the largest karst cave on the planet Bolshaya Oreshnaya. The compounds obtained from them may eventually become the basis for new antibiotics. "Russian Planet" has found out why the search for new substances for medicines is fundamentally important both for world pharmacology and for the survival of all mankind.

"Magic Bullets"

Penicillin – the world's first substance that kills bacteria – was discovered in 1928 by British biologist Alexander Fleming, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for this discovery. Only 10 years later, penicillin was obtained in its pure form, and only in 1943 began its widespread production and practical application in medical practice.

– Penicillin and other antibiotics – substances that selectively inhibit the vital activity of microorganisms – saved millions of lives already during the Second World War and immediately after its completion, – biologist, Candidate of Biological Sciences Vladimir Shchetinin tells the RP correspondent. – At that time, it seemed that antibiotics were "magic bullets" that killed infectious diseases, and the problem of global epidemics was solved once and for all. For example, child mortality from bacterial pneumonia by the 1950s of the XX century was reduced from 90% to 10%. However, it soon became clear that bacteria are rapidly becoming resistant to antibiotics, and the number of such resistant microorganisms is growing exponentially with the expansion of the use of drugs.

The genetic apparatus of bacteria is arranged differently from that of more complex multicellular organisms. It is unstable and subject to constant mutations that allow them to survive in almost any adverse environments, including those where antibiotics are present. Coupled with rapid reproduction, this property has allowed bacteria to survive on Earth for at least 3 billion years.

Bacteria mutate into strains that are immune to any pathogenic substances for them in the shortest possible time. Thus, the first penicillin–resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacteria were detected amazingly quickly - already in 1944, just a year after the first antibiotic was widely used. Therefore, any antibiotic becomes ineffective after a while.

– Now they are saying all over the world that it is necessary to reduce the use of antibiotics in medicine to a minimum in order to stop the emergence of resistant strains of bacteria, – continues Vladimir Shchetinin. – But the problem is compounded by the fact that resistant strains arise as a result of the use of antibiotics not only in medicine, but also in animal husbandry and agriculture. In particular, according to approximate estimates, only 20% of antibiotics are used in the treatment of people, the remaining 80% are used in the cultivation of pets. Today, the resistance of bacteria to antibiotics is recognized as almost the main threat to the existence of all mankind. It is more serious than global climate change. If no solution is found, global epidemics will again claim millions of lives, as it happened in the Middle Ages.

Playing ahead of the curve

Today, it is necessary to constantly search for and create new antibiotics to which bacteria have not yet had time to adapt. In the 70s of the XX century, when up to 300 new antibiotics were described annually, it seemed that it would be easy to do this. More and more of their species will appear endlessly.

– By the 1980s, new antibiotics began to be created many times less, and since the 90s, their new classes have no longer appeared on the pharmacological market. Only four new antibiotics have been introduced to the European market over the past 10 years," Vladimir Shchetinin emphasizes. – Although there are several thousand antibiotics today, and this is the largest group of medicines, no one guarantees that very soon all bacteria dangerous to humans will become multi-resistant to them. Then ordinary pneumonia, dysentery or meningitis will again become fatal diseases.

Modifying already known drugs by changing their molecular structure, as many global pharmaceutical companies are doing now, is ineffective: bacteria still have time to evolve and adapt to them too quickly. This can only be a temporary solution to the problem.

The only way out is to look for substances that can become a source of fundamentally new antibiotics that the bacteria living now have not yet encountered. The most promising way is to detect bacterial species that can produce previously unknown substances with antibiotic properties that kill other bacteria that are dangerous to humans. In this case, the ability of antibiotic-producing microorganisms to rapidly mutate and multiply will play on the side of scientists, not against them.

Lost Worlds

In the global competition, the winner will be the one who will be the first to be able to detect previously unknown strains of bacteria – possible sources of radically new antibiotics. Russian scientists began to study the caves among the first. The living organisms living in them, including bacteria, are most often unique – they have developed for thousands of years in isolation, without exposure to sunlight, with stable humidity, in a special microclimate. In the caves of Siberia, bacteria also evolved at an almost constant low temperature – 2-4 Co. All Siberian caves are of particular interest to scientists from Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, Novosibirsk, from the metropolitan institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences. But the most promising of them are the most ancient, long and branched. This is both the longest cave in Russia, Botovskaya, and the caves of the Tazheran steppe, formed 30 million years ago, when Lake Baikal was still in its infancy. And, of course, the largest karst cave in the world is Bolshaya Oreshnaya.

– The Big Hazel Cave is located not far from Krasnoyarsk, in the Mansky massif of the Eastern Sayans, – Krasnoyarsk speleologist Pavel Brodnev tells the correspondent of RP. – Its depth reaches 195 m, and the total length of open passages is over 50 km. It began to form 20-25 million years ago. And speleologists have been systematically exploring it for more than half a century, and every time they discover more and more new moves.

Life - saving slush

Bolshaya Oreshnaya also presented new discoveries to scientists from the Research Institute of Biology of Irkutsk State University, who went underground in search of previously unknown bacteria. They found 10 new strains of actinobacteria capable of reproducing antibiotics in the waters of a cave lake and a substance called moon milk.

–Moon milk is a white jelly–like mass that accumulates on the walls and floor of caves," explains Pavel Brodnev. – It is still not known for sure what causes it. According to one theory, it is a product of centuries-old vital activity of various microorganisms. And speleologists have long known that the wound will heal faster if you lubricate it with moon milk.

Previously unknown strains of actinobacteria found in this substance secrete biologically active substances that suppress the reproduction of other bacteria. According to Denis Aksenov-Gribanov, Candidate of Biological Sciences, one active strain, named after the moon milk in which it was found, produces more than 120 compounds, 100 of which are new to scientists. The strain "moon milk" has already proved to be active against antibiotic–resistant E. coli and pathogenic fungi - pathogens of thrush. What other properties it possesses, what antibiotics, insecticides, fungicides and herbicides can be obtained from it, scientists have yet to establish.

The results of a preliminary study of bacterial strains from the Bolshaya Oreshnaya Cave, conducted by Irkutsk residents together with colleagues from Germany, are published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE (Axenov-Gibanov et al., Actinobacteria Isolated from an Underground Lake and Moonmilk Speleothem from the Biggest Conglomeratic Karstic Cave in Siberia as Sources of Novel Biologically Active Compounds – VM). There is a high probability that the found actinobacteria will eventually become the basis for a fundamentally new product on the pharmacological market and will help save millions of human lives.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru  04.04.2016