Authors
Zingl, F. G., Mekalanos, M. L., Leitner, D. R., Walsh, S. R., Waldor, M., Mekalanos, J. J.
Abstract
New therapeutic approaches are needed to treat infections due to multidrug resistant (MDR) Gram-negative bacteria. The use of antibody-recruiting molecules (ARMs) is a promising approach to address the MDR problem given their potential to engage both the adaptive and innate immune systems to treat bacterial infections. Here we present two new strategies to create ARMs. First, we show that a 9-mer antimicrobial peptide (K6) can be fused to a 11-mer mimotope peptide recognized by antibodies targeting the Vibrio cholerae O1 O-antigen to produce an ARM peptide (FZ5) that can render E. coli more sensitive to complement killing in the presence of antibodies that recognize this mimotope. FZ5 can drive killing by complement in the presence of rabbit antibodies raised against O1 serogroup V. cholerae as well as antibodies present in human sera elicited by immunization with the live attenuated cholera vaccine PanChol. We also describe a strategy that combines bacterial surface binding with hapten display through the use of homodimers of the antibiotic streptomycin (Str) and anti-Str antibodies elicited by Str-protein conjugate vaccines. When combined with dimeric Str derivatives and human complement, polyclonal anti-streptomycin antisera kills E. coli by targeting the Str hapten. Dimeric forms of Str also significantly enhanced killing of a Str-resistant P. aeruginosa clinical isolate dependent on low levels of human complement and polyclonal anti-Str antibody. Together these data suggest that anti-bacterial ARM molecules based on mimotope display through simple synthetic fusion peptides, or dimeric haptens have promise as new approaches for the treatment of MDR bacterial infections.
Preprint server:
bioRxiv
The authors list and abstract were imported from bioRxiv on 02 Oct 2026.
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