A group of Russian researchers from Skoltech University, together with their Chinese colleagues, discovered a mass of bacteria that produce various antibiotics in the waters and soil of the Tibetan Plateau. The study was published in the scientific journal magazine Frontiers in Microbiology (FIM).
Bacterial microorganisms can produce substances that help them fight each other.
The team collected a series of samples and sent them to the Beijing Antimicrobial Laboratory. Here, researchers grew bacteria on nutrient media and isolated key compounds that could be used to kill pathogens.
Further research showed that microbes living in the salt lakes of the Tibetan Plateau synthesize substances such as gedamicin and kidamicin, while soil microorganisms produce rifamycin.
Although all the bactericidal compounds discovered were already known to science, the discovery of their presence high in the Tibetan mountains came as a surprise to scientists. Further research could help find entirely new antibiotics needed to fight multidrug-resistant bacteria, according to the study authors.
Previous scientists was created A drug against bacteria that are immune to almost all drugs.