Breast Cancer Pill Tamoxifen Can Kill Drug Resistant MRSA

Breast cancer drug Tamoxifen can fight drug-resistant bacteria MRSA, which causes fatal infections and has few treatment options.

The Washington Post reports that methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) caused 5,000 deaths in US in 2013 besides causing infections that may result in loss of limb or other debilitating situations. Tamoxifen works by blocking estrogen receptors on cancer cells, cutting their supply of estrogen necessary for their growth and proliferation. Researchers at University of California San Diego also noticed that the drug can boost the functioning of a type of white blood cells called Neutrophils.

"The threat of multidrug-resistant bacterial pathogens is growing, yet the pipeline of new antibiotics is drying up," said the study's senior author Victor Nizet, according to NDTV.

For the study, researchers found that Tamoxifen enhanced the ability of neutrophils to fight pathogens by helping them form extracellular traps which are coated with antimicrobial peptides (short chain of amino acids) which can trap bacteria and kill them.

"Tamoxifen enhances killing of pathogens in vitro and enhances clearance of MRSA in vivo," researchers wrote in Nature Communications.