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PRESS RELEASE
April 20, 2022
Existing medicines with potential to be repurposed to treat
gonorrhoea identified in Portuguese study
- Blood pressure drug, chemotherapy drug and anti-malarial all show promise
- Work could contribute to a paradigm shift in search for new treatments for STI
Note: the release below is a special early release from the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID 2022, Lisbon, 23-26 April).
32nd European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases
Lisbon, Portugal
23-26 April
www.eccmid.org
New research being presented at this year’s European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) in Lisbon, Portugal,(23-26 April), has identified several existing medicines with potential to be repurposed to treat gonorrhoea.
These include amlodipine, a widely used blood pressure drug, doxorubicin, a chemotherapy drug used to treat many different types of cancer, and atovaquone, which is found in some anti-malarial tablets.
Gonorrhoea is the second most common bacterial sexually transmitted infection (STI) globally, and in the UK, where a record 70,936 cases were diagnosed in England 2019.
Left untreated it can lead to serious complications, including infertility in men and women and complications in pregnancy, including miscarriages.
Resistance to the antibiotics used to treat the gonorrhoea bacterium Neisseria gonorrhoeae is growing rapidly and the World Health Organization has designated it a “priority pathogen” for which new treatments are urgently needed. Some strains are now resistant to even last-resort antibiotics, making them untreatable.
Drug efflux, a process by which bacteria pump drugs out of their cells, is a key mechanism of antibiotic resistance in gonorrhoea. Inhibiting the process can increase the concentration of the antibiotic inside the bacteria and so make them more susceptible to treatment.
Drug repurposing, the finding of a new use for an existing drug, is an increasingly attractive option for developing new therapies. The large amount of information that is already available on that drug, including results from human trials, can the reduce risks surrounding drug development, as well as the development costs and time to market.
Dr Lilana Rodrigues and colleagues at the Institute of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (IHMT), NOVA University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal, set out to identify and then test existing medicines that can inhibit drug efflux.
Using computer modelling they identified 30 potential “weak spots” in the drug efflux mechanism of N. gonorrhoeae and 57 existing drugs with the potential to exploit them.
Further tests ‘in vitro’ (in a dish in the lab) showed at least six drugs, including amlodipine, doxorubicin, atovaquone, acetazolamide, dequalinium and clomipramine, to be the most promising.
In addition, several gonorrhoea antibiotics were at least four times more effective when used in combination with doxorubicin, acetazolamide or atovaquone than when used alone.
Dr Rodrigues says: “This work could contribute to a paradigm shift in search for new treatments for gonorrhoea.
“Better treatments for gonorrhea are urgently needed and finding new uses for old drugs could provide a rapid and relatively inexpensive solution.”
To arrange an interview, please email the study’s author:
Dr Liliana Rodrigues, Institute of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (IHMT), NOVA University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal E) lrodrigues@ihmt.unl.pt
Alternative contact: Tony Kirby in the ECCMID Media Centre. T) +44 7834 385827 E) tony@tonykirby.com
Notes to editors:
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
This press release is based on poster 03433 at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID). The material has been peer reviewed by the congress selection committee. There is no full paper at this stage.
For full abstract click here
For full poster click here
Twitter (for when embargo lifts): @escmid #ECCMID2022
Tony Kirby
Official Press Agent
32nd European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases
23 - 26 April 2022
www.eccmid.org
Phone: +44 783 438 5827
tony.kirby@tonykirby.com
Contact
Tony Kirby
Tony Kirby PR
tony@tonykirby.com
Cell: +44 7834 385827
Source: Existing medicines with potential to be repurposed to treat gonorrhoea identified in Portuguese study
"Reproduced with permission - "European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) "
European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID)
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