A study on moonmilk led to the discovery of a compound active against superbugs.
Moonmilk, a concretion frequently found in various forms in limestone caves, is a speleothem most often observed in the form of a soft rock depending on its hygrometry.According to Sébastien Rigali, a molecular microbiologist at the Centre for Protein Engineering—CIP of the University of Liège, there is a lot of archaeological evidence of its use as an anti-infectious agent, mainly in the Swiss and Austrian Alps.
The first step was to go into the field, into the caves of the Condruzian plateau, in order to find deposits of moonmilk and to isolate filamentous actinobacteria, the bacteria that are champions in the production of antimicrobial agents. The researchers found many of them, both in number and diversity.
This means that these strains constitute a real reservoir for the discovery of new bioactive molecules. “Statistically, it’s as if all you have to do is bend over and pick up and identify a new antibiotic, antifungal or even anticancer agents,” Rigali said. To deal with these issues, Rigali and his team collaborated with other laboratories and with the company HEDERA-22, a ULiège spin-off. Recently, they were able to figure out the first cryptic compound., lunaemycin and lunaelactis referring to the ecological niche from which this molecule and this bacterium originate, the moonmilk.
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