Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Have High Genomic Replikin Counts

CANADA - A group of lethal bacteria are of increasing concern worldwide because they are becoming resistant to many or all of the antibiotics previously effective against them. Bioradar UK Ltd. has announced in Ottawa that it has discovered that the concentration of genomic Replikins is markedly increased in antibiotic-resistant bacteria. This finding is permitting a new approach to the problem of antibiotic resistance.

20 March 2013

3 minute read

North America

The specific change in the Replikins genomic structure of the Replikins provides a novel target: proprietary Replikins Synthetic Vaccines like those found effective against H5N1 influenza in poultry and lethal Taura Syndrome virus in shrimp, have been formulated, and which are now available for testing against lethal antibiotic-resistant Gonococcus, Tuberculosis, Staphylococcus, Streptococcus, Klebsiella KPC and Clostridium difficile.

For example, in Replikin Analysis of antibiotic-sensitive-Gonococcus, in all 5,110 genomic sequences on Pubmed, the percent of the gonococcus population with Replikin®Counts above 4.0 is only three per cent but in antibiotic-resistant-Gonococcus, the percent in the gonococcus genome with ReplikinCounts greater than 4.0 increased to 95 per cent in tetracycline-resistant Gonococcus.

In Cl.difficile, in sequences from 86,581 specimens, the percent of ReplikinCounts greater than 4.0 was found to increase from approximately 30 per cent in the year 2000 to 45.6 per cent in 2007 and has remained at that level to 2012. Similar data were obtained in Staphylococcus, with 86 per cent above a Count of 4.0 in 2006, and in Streptococcus, with 65 per cent above a Count of 4.0 in 2009.

When an association of genomic Replikins was first observed in Tuberculosis, there was no reason to assume that this was a general genomic structural property of resistance in bacteria.

However upon Replikins Analyses of 123,704 genomic sequences from several pathogenic bacteria published in Pubmed, the unexpected discovery was made that when bacterial resistance develops, for example in all six of the above named bacteria of concern, there is a marked increase in the genomic ReplikinCounts (number of genomic Replikins per 100 amino acids; p<0.001).

ReplikinCounts of 0.1 to 4.0 were found in antibiotic-sensitive bacteria; antibiotic-resistant bacteria isolates had ReplikinCounts greater than 4.0, which ranged from 4.1 to 50. Thus as the resistance to antibiotics of that bacterial population increased, the percent of ReplikinCounts in that bacterial population increased.

As new Replikins are added to or disappear from the genome during bacterial evolution, certain individual Replikins remain conserved for decades, making long-acting vaccines possible. This shared genomic structural property shared by different antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains presents a new platform in bacterial genomic structure for specific early diagnosis, vaccines, and therapies.

Effective Replikins vaccines have been synthesised more cheaply than the cost of biological vaccines (10¢ versus $11), and in seven days rather than eight months, and by solid phase synthesis in virtually unlimited amounts, rather than only approximately 1.25 billion doses in eight months as in the 2009 H1N1 pandemic; lacking the potential for side-effects due to biological contaminants, and shipped freeze-dried without refrigeration.

Another consequence of this finding in the genomes of infectious diseases is the ability for the first time to predict outbreaks in advance, providing time to respond well in advance of the outbreak.

Before this work on bacteria, earlier studies by our companies on viruses, including influenza, found that when the virus genomes contained increasing concentrations of Replikins, outbreaks of these specific viruses, and the geographic sites of these outbreaks, were predicted one to two years in advance of the outbreak.

Twelve out of 12 such correct predictions, based on ReplikinCounts alone, have been made and most published in prospective trials in the past nine years, including Replikins' 2008 prediction of the coming 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic.

Retrospectively, the prediction by ReplikinCounts of outbreaks also was found in all influenza pandemics and major outbreaks in the past century.

The companies' resulting H5N1 vaccine (ReplikinsSyntheticTrans-FluTMVaccine), has been successful in poultry in blocking virus entry, replication and excretion, and Replikins Taura Syndrome Virus Vaccine has protected 91 per cent of shrimp against this fatal virus. Both vaccines were produced in seven days and shipped freeze-dried.