Will Komodo Dragons Yield the Next Blockbuster Antibiotic?

The giant lizards have numerous microbicidal compounds in their blood.

| 5 min read

Listen with Speechify

0:00

5:00

DRAGON PROBLEMS: A Komodo dragon fitted with a GPS tracking device stalks an injured Timor deer in the shallows fringing the Komodo Archipelago in Eastern Indonesia.PLOS ONE, 5:e11097, 2010; PHOTO BY ACHMAD ARIEFIANDY

With the world facing an anti-biotic-resistance crisis, the hunt is on for alternatives to fight bacterial infection. The quest has led peptide chemist Barney Bishop and bacteriologist Monique van Hoek, both at George Mason University in Virginia, to look for antimicrobial peptides in an unexpected place: inside the Komodo dragon.

“Natural antimicrobial peptides are found pervasively in life on this planet,” Bishop says. “It’s one of the most primitive immune systems; even bacteria use antimicrobial peptides against other bacteria.”

Animals that live in “microbially challenging environments,” could be expected to harbor numerous and varied antimicrobial peptides, says van Hoek. Alligators, for example, live in swamps teeming with microbes and regularly sustain injuries from other gators. The distantly related Komodo dragon has been thought to harbor ...

Interested in reading more?

Become a Member of

Receive full access to digital editions of The Scientist, as well as TS Digest, feature stories, more than 35 years of archives, and much more!

Join for free today

Already a member? Login Here

Keywords

Meet the Author

Jef Akst
Jef Akst was managing editor of The Scientist, where she started as an intern in 2009 after receiving a master’s degree from Indiana University in April 2009 studying the mating behavior of seahorses.
View full profile