CBC News - COMPOUNDS STOP ANTHRAX TOXIN: STUDIES

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COMPOUNDS STOP ANTHRAX TOXIN: STUDIES
WebPosted Mon Dec 29 18:41:38 2003

Boston---Researchers have discovered a way to stop a deadly anthrax
toxin in tests on cells. They say it could lead to new ways of treating
the disease.

When people breathe in tiny anthrax spores, they can contract
inhalational anthrax, a serious form of the disease. Since the initial
symptoms mimic colds and flu, it is difficult to diagnose.


Inhalational anthrax needs to be treated quickly

The development of anthrax treatments is an urgent priority for
scientists given the threat of its use in bioterrorism. In October 2001,
anthrax-laced letters killed five people in the United States. No one has
been arrested in the attacks.

Two groups of American researchers have developed new approaches to
inhibiting the toxin, called lethal factor.

"Unlike most types of bacteria, Bacillus anthracis has the ability to
produce large amounts of a toxin that can kill the patient even after
antibiotics have destroyed the bacteria," said systems biology Prof.
Lewis Cantley at Harvard Medical School.

Autopsies of patients who have died from inhalational anthrax show high
doses of antibiotics killed the germ. The findings suggest patients died
from the toxins, not the infection.

Cantley and his colleagues said their discovery could offer a way for
scientists to develop drugs to fight the anthrax toxin.

The drugs would work like the protease inhibitors that tackle HIV. Like a
key fitting into a lock, protease inhibitors "lock up" an enzyme so the
virus can't make more copies of itself.

Rather than vaccinating whole populations, a therapeutic combination of
antibiotics and protease inhibitor drugs would need to be used only in
actual cases, Cantley said.

A second team led by Sina Bavari of the US Army Medical Research
Institute of Infectious Diseases in Maryland looked at the X-ray
structure of the compounds to determine their value as potential drugs.

Both studies appear in the Dec. 29 online issue of Nature Structural &
Molecular Biology .

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