The metal gallium fights bacterial infections in mice and humans

The lack of new antibiotics is among the most critical challenges facing medicine. The public health crisis of antibiotic resistance has spurred studies of nonconventional antimicrobial approaches. One such strategy is to target bacterial nutrition and metabolism. The metal gallium can disrupt bacterial iron metabolism because it substitutes for iron when taken up by bacteria. Researchers recently demonstrated that gallium treatment showed antibiotic activity in mice with lung infections and improved lung function in people with cystic fibrosis and chronic lung infection in a preliminary phase 1 clinical trial. Moreover, gallium resistance develops at low rates, and the metal’s antibacterial activity may be enhanced by some conventional antibiotics. These findings raise the possibility that human infections could be treated by targeting iron metabolism or other nutritional vulnerabilities of multidrug-resistant pathogens. The study, which was partly funded by the NHLBI, was published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.