PAB

When a sulfa drug comes along, some ordinarily susceptible bacteria do not just lie down and take it. Some of them develop such resistance that they can even multiply in the presence of the enemy. Up to now, laboratory workers have been unable to prove how a resistant strain differs from a susceptible one of the same species. They look alike, grow alike, form the same kind of colonies.

One theory holds that the resistance consists of increased production of PAB (para-aminobenzoic acid). But for a long time researchers were balked because there was no good test for the presence of PAB. Last year a good test was announced.

In Science last week Maurice Landy and coworkers of the Army Medical School in Washington announced that they had used the test with positive results: a resistant strain of Staphylococcus aureus (pus bacteria) was definitely making more PAB than its sulfa-susceptible twin. They attributed its sulfa-resistance to the PAB --possibly a big step forward in chemotherapy.

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