Post by McMaster Faculty of Health Sciences

Researchers at McMaster University have discovered what they describe as a “megacluster” of genes in Streptomyces bacteria that produces four antibiotics that work together to stop rival bacteria.        Published today in Nature, the new study describes an unusual stretch of DNA that encodes four distinct families of natural product antibiotics, including one compound entirely new to science and another that had never before been recognized as an antibiotic.       Together, the four molecules work to target a single vulnerability: biotin, an essential nutrient required by most bacteria for survival.    Learn more: https://lnkd.in/gEFgmsd3