Meet Keanu Reeves, The Antimicrobial Agent: New Bacterial Product Could Protect Plants From Fungi

Researchers have named a newly discovered natural product after actor Keanu Reeves because they believe it is as deadly as his movie characters.

The team behind the study, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, had been working on the bacterial genus Pseudomonas for a while, the Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology: Hans Knöll Institute (Leibniz-HKI) noted in a press release.

"We have been working with pseudomonads for some time and know that many of these bacterial species are very toxic to amoebae, which feed on bacteria," explained study lead Pierre Stallforth.

However, only one of the toxins responsible for the deadly effect of the bacteria had been known so far.

The researchers isolated and identified a group of active natural ingredients in Pseudomonas genus that appear to be particularly deadly: keanumycins A, B and C. The team named it after actor Keanu Reeves because of how effectively it kills its enemies, much like his characters.

"(H)e, too, is extremely deadly in his roles," study first author Sebastian Götze of Leibniz-HKI said.

This keanumycin group is, indeed, deadly. It was reportedly effective against plant pest Botrytis cinerea, which causes gray mold rot that leads to great harvest losses every year. And since it is biodegradable and "harmless" to plant cells, it's possible that a product containing keaunumycins could ideally be used as a more Earth-friendly plant pesticide alternative, according to Leibniz-HKI.

But its deadliness doesn't end there, as researchers have also tested its killer instinct on fungi that affect humans. One of them is Candida albicans, which according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the "most common" Candida species to cause infection in people.

"We found that it strongly inhibits the pathogenic fungus Candida albicans, among others," Götze explained.

And since it was also previously deemed harmless to human cells, it could pave the way for new antimycotic pharmaceuticals, which researchers feel is "urgently needed" as there aren't many available on the market at the moment.

Overall, the discovery of keanumycins could not only lead to a new, environment-friendly way of protecting crops, but also helps fight human fungal infections.