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A team of researchers from the University of Bristol have found faster and cheaper ways to produce antibiotics for the treatment of multi-drug resistant superbugs like MRSA and TB. It is reported that with the help of the process developed by the researchers the antibiotics production could be increased by 2,000 percent.

Since resistance to antibiotics in microbes is increasing in recent years, there is a need for development of efficient antibiotics in fast pace as well as at affordable prices. The derivative of antibiotic pleuromutilin, which is isolated from the fungi speices Clitopilus passeckerianus is reportedly the promising new class of drugs for tackling bacteria.

The lack of cross-resistance and novel mode of action exhibited by pleuromutilin makes them effective group of antibiotics that could be used in human therapeutics. This group of antibiotics is also efficient in treating superbugs like extensively drug resistant tuberculosis (XTB) and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). But pleuromutilin is found only in the basidiomycete fungi that cannot be subjected to fermentation or strain improvement.

Therefore, the researchers from the University of Bristol in collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline isolated the gene responsible for production of pleuromutilin in C. passeckerianus. They discovered seven-gene cluster involved in pleuromutilin production in the fungi.

"The seven-gene pleuromutilin cluster was then reconstructed within a more industrial fungus, Aspergillus oryzae which belongs to a different group of fungi, the ascomycetes. This resulted in a significant increase (2,106 per cent) in production. This is the first gene cluster from a basidiomycete to be successfully expressed in an ascomycete, and paves the way for the exploitation of a metabolically rich but traditionally overlooked group of fungi," reported Science Daily.

The co-author of the research, Professor Gary Foster acknowledged the involvement of Dr Andy Bailey, Dr Colin Lazarus, Professor Chris Willis, Professor Russell Cox, and collaborative scientists in GSK in making this breakthrough development possible.

"This was a massive team effort over many years to achieve this major breakthrough," Foster said. "With this development, we are now ideally placed to develop novel derivatives and new antibiotics and produce them rapidly and cost effectively -- something which is desperately needed globally," he added, reported Daily Mail.