Researchers from U.S. drug maker Merck & Co. have found a natural chemical from a soil bacterium in South Africa can beat several bacteria that have developed resistance to existing antibiotics.

The new antibiotic, named platensimycin, is an antimicrobial compound produced by a bacterium called Streptomyces platensis.

Researchers screened 250,000 natural products, and discovered it from "a strain of Streptomyces platensis recovered from a soil sample collected in South Africa," they said in the journal Nature to be published on Thursday.

The compound is used by the soil bacterium to combat other microbes. It works by making other microbes unable to synthesize the essential substance of lipids for survival.

Dr. Jun Wang and colleagues, from Merck Research Laboratories in Rahway, New Jersey, reported that lab dish experiments and animal studies showed platensimycin has potent, broad-spectrum activity against multiple microbes.

Tests found it effective in curing mice infected with an antibiotic-resistant strain of Staphylococcus aureus, and so against a variety of antibiotic-resistant microbes, with "no observed toxicity".

The researchers believe the discovery would help develop critically needed new antibiotics to beat drug-resistant "superbugs" that have emerged in recent years and made some infections very hard to treat.

Source: Xinhua