Translocation Transfer

Miguel Viñas

Affiliation:

Dept. Pathology &Experimental therapeutics
Medical School
University of Barcelona
Spain

Contact:

Phone: +34 93 4024265
Email: mvinyas@ub.edu
Website: www.ub.edu

Current Position:

Full professor Microbiology

Key words:

Antiinfective drug discovery, synthetic peptides, Biofilm, AFM, synergism CAMPs-Antibiotics

Expertise:

Our research focuses the exploration of new cationic peptides (CAMP) presumably active as antimicrobial agents. Synergism between CAMPs and conventional antibiotics has been demonstrated and may greatly contribute to the rescue of traditional antimicrobials whose use was abandoned due to their toxicity (since doses may be greatly reduced) or allowing to use antimicrobials to fight resistant bacteria since CAMPs may permeabilize outer membrane (e.g Imipenem and certain CAPMs)., resulting in higher intracellular concentrations of the other antimicrobials. Research is done in cooperation of Fernando Albericio’s team (Organic Chemistry synthesis)

Role in the network:

Provide methods to analyse of the effect of new antimicrobials on Biofilm by microbiological methods by AFM and by CLSM. Mechanisms of interaction between CAMPs and membranes can be explored by measurements of the anisotropy of bacterial membranes, as an indicator of membrane fluidity, and the effect of CAMPs decreasing the function of the cellular efflux machinery.

References:

• Rudilla H, Pérez-Guillén I, Rabanal F, Sierra JM, Vinuesa T, Viñas M. Novel synthetic polymyxins kill Gram-positive bacteria. J AntimicrobChemother. 2018 Dec 1;73(12):3385-3390. doi: 10.1093/jac/dky366.
• Sans-Serramitjana E, Jorba M, Pedraz JL, Vinuesa T, Viñas M. Determination of the spatiotemporal dependence of Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilm viability after treatment with NLC-colistin.Int J Nanomedicine. 2017 Jun 12;12:4409-4413. doi: 10.2147/IJN.S138763.
• Sierra JM, Fusté E, Rabanal F, Vinuesa T, Viñas M.An overview of antimicrobial peptides and the latest advances in their development.Expert OpinBiolTher. 2017 Jun;17(6):663-676. doi: 10.1080/14712598.2017.1315402.
• Rudilla H, Fusté E, Cajal Y, Rabanal F, Vinuesa T, Viñas M. Synergistic Antipseudomonal Effects of Synthetic Peptide AMP38 and Carbapenems.Molecules. 2016 Sep 12;21(9). pii: E1223. doi: 10.3390/molecules21091223