Research in brief

Abstract

Section snippets

Discovery of a new antibiotic

Researchers in the USA and Canada identified a new broad-spectrum antibiotic in a soil sample from a colleague's garden. After growing bacterial strains from samples on soil-agar plates at room temperature for about 1 year, the methanolic extract of the Paenibacillus spp M2 strain was found to have potent antibacterial activity, even against colistin-resistant Escherichia coli, and had no matches in antibiotic databases. Purification of the compound revealed a lasso peptide, with a distinctive

Intranasal H5N1 vaccines

Two intranasal vaccine candidates against influenza A H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b have been developed in China using NS1-deleted live attenuated influenza viral vectors, a system used previously to develop a COVID-19 vaccine. Intranasal immunisation (10⁶ plaque-forming units) of mice and hamsters with either of the new vaccines provided protection against challenge with reverse genetic versions of highly pathogenic cattle and mink H5N1 viruses, with no disease apparent or virus detected during the

Monoclonal antibodies for hepatitis E virus

Researchers developed nine monoclonal antibodies from mouse cell lines against the capsid protein of hepatitis E virus (HEV)-3. Three antibodies bound to specific HEV peptide sequences, and one—5F6A1—demonstrated the greatest neutralisation capacity against an HEV-3 strain in vitro. 5F6A1 was subsequently tested in vivo in pigs infected with HEV-3, with the animals intravenously receiving 2·46 g of the antibody on days 1 and 7 after infection. Circulating monoclonal antibodies were detected in

blaOXA-181 in Salmonella enterica in Italy

Genomic surveillance of thousands of Salmonella isolates in northern Italy revealed the emergence of Salmonella enterica carrying the carbapenemase-coding blaOXA-181 gene. As part of ongoing testing, the Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale laboratory covering the Emilia-Romagna and Lombardy regions whole-genome sequenced 2824 Salmonella isolates from humans and 8574 isolates from animals and food between 2021 and 2024, and screened the genomes in 2024 for antimicrobial resistance genes. The

Antibiotic allergy delabelling before surgery

Antibiotic allergy labels can worsen patient outcomes after surgery. A randomised trial in Australia investigated a digital antibiotic-allergy risk assessment tool (intervention) versus standard allergy assessment (control) in preoperative patients with a reported β-lactam antibiotic allergy. 47 patients (64%) of 74 assigned to receive the intervention proceeded to allergy testing (either direct oral challenge if deemed low risk or skin testing followed by oral challenge if assessed as medium