Press Release
UKM and International Consortium of Researchers Uncovered Mystery Of Deadly Melioidosis Disease
Malaysian Researchers from UKM and Malaysia Genome Institute, and their international collaborators from United Kingdom and Singapore have succeeded in uncovering the mechanism by which the bacteria Burkholderia pseudomallei causes the deadly disease melioidosis. Results of their breakthrough appeared in the Nov 11, 2011 issue of Science, the world's leading journal of original scientific research.
They discovered a highly potent toxin, Burkholderia Lethal Factor 1 – BLF1, which prevents cells from an infected body from synthesizing proteins.This led to a major breakthrough in unravelling how the bacteria acts on and causes death of infected host cells.
“An outcome of the disruption of this important process is that cells begin to die leading to organ failure and death”, said leader of the Malaysian component of the research for the last 15 years, Prof Rahmah Mohamed from the School of Biosciences and Biotechnology, Faculty of Science and Technology, UKM.
She described the finding as a major breakthrough in unravelling how the bacteria acts on and causes death of infected hosts.
Other members of the Malaysian research team are Prof Sheila Nathan and Dr Firdaus Mohd Raih, also from the Faculty of Science and Technology UKM as well as Emeritus Prof Nor Muhammad Mahadi, the Director General of Malaysia Genome Institute (MGI).
UKM Vice-Chancellor, Prof Tan Sri Sharifah Hapsah Syed Hasan Shahabudin in an immediate response, described this as an immense significant story not only for its scientific value but serves to show the importance of international collaboration.
Prof Sharifah Hapsah said: “UKM is proud of the team. I hope the story will be a source of inspiration to other researchers, for them to know that big dreams are achievable.”
The researchers from UKM and MGI worked closely with a consortium of laboratories from the United Kingdom, The Krebs Institute at the University of Sheffield, University of Exeter and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory.
Their joint effort was also supplemented by researchers in Singapore from the Defence Medical & Environmental Research Institute, DSO National Laboratories and Genome Institute of Singapore.
In an interview with the UKM News Portal, Prof Rahmah who is also the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Innovation Affairs) said that after more than three decades of research at UKM, the mystery that surrounds the disease melioidosis has been deciphered.
Grants from the Genomics and Molecular Biology R & D Initiatives (GMBI), Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI) and UKM Research University grant, Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) awarded to the group funded the research programme to discover the function of Burkholderia pseudomallei proteins of unknown function through the use of genomics, structural biology and bioinformatics.
The breakthrough is evident of the need for international collaborations as scientific investigations today had become more and more multidisciplinary, Prof Rahmah said.
The consortium, comprising 28 researchers including the Malaysians, is now planning to request for further research funding to carry on with their work beyond melioidosis. The group is also exploring the potential application of BLF-1 in cancer therapy.
She said that there is currently no available vaccine for melioidosis, a life-threatening disease that has increasingly become a major health challenge in Malaysia and other Southeast-Asian countries.
The bacteria that causes the infection thrives in the hot wet soils found in the region. Melioidosis gained notoriety as the cause of death of several men involved in a search and rescue operation of a drowning victim at the Lubuk Yu recreational area in Maran, Pahang in July 2010.
Ten other people were also reportedly killed by the disease in 2011 around the newly-built Bakun Dam in Sarawak. The victims were believed to have been infected by the bacteria through contact with the wet muddy soil of the area.
Prof Rahmah said: “It’s a vital research breakthrough that can lead to many health applications. It has not only resolved a longstanding question about the molecular mechanism of the disease but also opened up doors that can lead to prevention and treatment of melioidosis; especially with the recent rise of B. pseudomallei strains that are resistant to multiple drugs.”
Elucidation of the structure of BLF-1 protein may lead to vaccine development and better treatment of melioidosis in the foreseeable future, she said.
“Given the number of people wanting understand melioidosis, ranging from clinicians in hospitals to structural biologists at universities, this discovery is going to have a huge impact in our handling of future outbreaks of melioidosis.”
The Genomics and Molecular Biology R & D Initiatives (GMBI) which provided funding for the research is an initiative to make genomics a major platform for discovery and development of biotechnology in Malaysia. MGI is a network-based national biotechnology research institute that supports large-scale national and international multi-institutional projects in genomics and structural biology. – UKM News Portal