Drug resistance is an alarming prospect in both human and equine medicine, particularly because researchers are recognizing an ever-increasing number of disease-causing organisms (or pathogens) resistant to common antibiotics. Some that cause disease in horses include Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, and Rhodoccocus equi, to name a few.

“Given their fast generation times (on the scale of minutes instead of our years), bacteria are able to adapt and evolve very quickly to their changing environments, and it this ability that allows them to develop or acquire resistance to the antibiotics that we challenge them with,” explained Anthony Clarke, PhD, a professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, at the University of Guelph, in Ontario, Canada.

“The overuse and abuse of our antibiotics in the past has exacerbated this such that highly-resistant, so-called ‘superbugs,’ now exist that are resistant to almost all antibiotics available to the clinicians," he added. "Consequently, we have to manage our current arsenal of antibiotics carefully while continually trying to stay a step or two ahead of them with the search for and development of new drugs.”

Several research groups have spent years attempting to identify new “targets” that can be used to control bacterial infections (by either arresting the growth or killing bacteria cells outright). A series of studies resulted in the identification of a specific class of enzyme called “Ape.” Those enzymes play an integral role in modifying the cell wall of certain bacteria to control their metabolism. In addition, researchers identified a plant product called “purpurin” as a natural antibacterial agent that functions by inhibiting Ape