Scientists have discovered that giant pandas produce an antibiotic in their blood which kills fungi and bacteria.
The Telegraph reported that the antibiotic in panda blood could be created into new treatments. The antibiotic is believed to be released into the panda's immune system in order to proect them in the wild. The compound is called cathelicidin-AM and scientists found it after researching panda DNA.
Scientists have been able to create the antibiotic artificially in a lab by "decoding the genes to produce a small molecule known as a peptide," reported The Telegraph.
"It showed potential antimicrobial activities against wide spectrum of microorganisms including bacteria and fungi, both standard and drug-resistant strains," Dr Xiuwen Yan, who led the research at the Life Sciences College of Nanjing Agricultural University in China, said to The Telegraph.
"Under the pressure of increasing microorganisms with drug resistance against conventional antibiotics, there is urgent need to develop new type of antimicrobial agents."
The panda population has gone down a lot, partly because of bamboo forest deforestation in China and south east asia. Pandas are also known to be extremely poor at breeding, even in the wild. At panda sanctuaries there have been a lot of artificial breeding techniques used, but regardless, their numbers are still decreasing.
The discovery of this new element in their blood, could be used to strengthen conservation efforts for the panda.
"The Chinese researchers found that the cathelicidin-AM, which is produced by immune cells in the animal's blood, was found to kill bacteria in less than an hour while other well known antibiotics took more than six hours," reported The Telegraph.
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