News Releases & Research Results Development of gene-targeted antibacterial drugs for selective killing of bacteria - To overcome drug-resistant bacteria -

The results of research and development conducted by Professor Longzhu Cui and Lecturer Kotaro Kiga of the Division of Bacteriology, Department of Infection and Immunity, Jichi Medical University School of Medicine, and others.

• A novel technology for selective killing of drug-resistant bacteria was successfully developed by incorporating RNA-targeting CRISPR-Cas* (CRISPR-Cas13a), designed to detect drug-resistant genes, into bacteriophages, i.e., viruses that parasitize bacteria.
  *A bacterial ribonucleoprotein complex with a defense function against foreign nucleic acids.
• This technology was demonstrated to kill drug-resistant and toxin-producing bacteria that cannot be killed by antibacterial drugs.

This R&D project was conducted with the support of the Initiative for Progress of Research on Infectious Disease for global Epidemic (J-PRIDE) by AMED.

The results of R&D were published in the scientific journal Nature Communications on June 10.

Kiga K., et al. Development of CRISPR-Cas13a-based antimicrobials capable of sequence-specific killing of target bacteria Nature Communications
DOI：10.1038/s41467-020-16731-6