Paleopharmaceuticals from Baltic amber might fight drug-resistant
infections

Date:
April 5, 2021
Source:
American Chemical Society
Summary:
For centuries, people in Baltic nations have used ancient amber
for medicinal purposes. Even today, infants are given amber
necklaces that they chew to relieve teething pain, and people
put pulverized amber in elixirs and ointments for its purported
beneficial properties. Now, scientists have pinpointed compounds
that help explain Baltic amber's therapeutic effects and that could
lead to new medicines to combat antibiotic-resistant infections.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
For centuries, people in Baltic nations have used ancient amber for
medicinal purposes. Even today, infants are given amber necklaces
that they chew to relieve teething pain, and people put pulverized
amber in elixirs and ointments for its purported anti-inflammatory and anti-infective properties. Now, scientists have pinpointed compounds that
help explain Baltic amber's therapeutic effects and that could lead to
new medicines to combat antibiotic- resistant infections.


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The researchers will present their results today at the spring meeting
of the American Chemical Society (ACS).

Each year in the U.S., at least 2.8 million people get
antibiotic-resistant infections, leading to 35,000 deaths, according
to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "We knew from
previous research that there were substances in Baltic amber that might
lead to new antibiotics, but they had not been systematically explored,"
says Elizabeth Ambrose, Ph.D., who is the principal investigator of the project. "We have now extracted and identified several compounds in Baltic amber that show activity against gram-positive, antibiotic-resistant
bacteria." Ambrose's interest originally stemmed from her Baltic
heritage. While visiting family in Lithuania, she collected amber
samples and heard stories about their medicinal uses. The Baltic Sea
region contains the world's largest deposit of the material, which is fossilized resin formed about 44 million years ago. The resin oozed from now-extinct pines in the Sciadopityaceae family and acted as a defense
against microorganisms such as bacteria and fungi, as well as herbivorous insects that would become trapped in the resin.

Ambrose and graduate student Connor McDermott, who are at the University
of Minnesota, analyzed commercially available Baltic amber samples, in
addition to some that Ambrose had collected. "One major challenge was
preparing a homogeneous fine powder from the amber pebbles that could
be extracted with solvents," McDermott explains. He used a tabletop jar
rolling mill, in which the jar is filled with ceramic beads and amber
pebbles and rotated on its side.

Through trial and error, he determined the correct ratio of beads to
pebbles to yield a semi-fine powder. Then, using various combinations
of solvents and techniques, he filtered, concentrated and analyzed the
amber powder extracts by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS).

Dozens of compounds were identified from the GC-MS spectra. The most interesting were abietic acid, dehydroabietic acid and palustric acid
-- 20- carbon, three-ringed organic compounds with known biological
activity. Because these compounds are difficult to purify, the researchers bought pure samples and sent them to a company that tested their activity against nine bacterial species, some of which are known to be antibiotic resistant.

"The most important finding is that these compounds are active against
gram- positive bacteria, such as certain Staphylococcus aureus strains,
but not gram- negative bacteria," McDermott says. Gram-positive bacteria
have a less complex cell wall than gram-negative bacteria. "This implies
that the composition of the bacterial membrane is important for the
activity of the compounds," he says. McDermott also obtained a Japanese umbrella pine, the closest living species to the trees that produced the
resin that became Baltic amber. He extracted resin from the needles and
stem and identified sclarene, a molecule present in the extracts that
could theoretically undergo chemical transformations to produce the
bioactive compounds the researchers found in Baltic amber samples.

"We are excited to move forward with these results,"
Ambrose says. "Abietic acids and their derivatives are
potentially an untapped source of new medicines, especially
for treating infections caused by gram-positive bacteria,
which are increasingly becoming resistant to known antibiotics." ========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by American_Chemical_Society. Note:
Content may be edited for style and length.


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Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/04/210405075859.htm

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