New Mechanism Points the Way to Breaking Ribosome Antibiotic Resistance

Scientists from the University of Groningen uncovered how intracellular bacterial ribosomes can lead to antibiotic resistance.

The mechanism an antibiotic uses in order to kill bacteria is by targeting intracellular bacterial ribosomes. Ribosomes serve as sites of biological protein synthesis that help a cell survive and multiply. When an excess of protein synthesis is present in bacteria, the ribosome becomes more resistant to antibiotics.

The research groups from the Groningen Biomolecular Sciences and Biotechnology Institute of the University of Groningen recently discovered a novel way to break the excess of protein synthesis.

“In a collaborative effort, research groups from the Groningen Biomolecular Sciences and Biotechnology Institute of the University of Groningen led by Egbert Boekema, Bert Poolman and Albert Guskov revealed a novel mechanism of ribosome dimerization in the bacterium Lactococcus lactis using cryo-electron microscopy. The peculiarity of the mechanism they describe is that it involves a single protein, named HPF^long, which is capable to dimerize on its own and then pull two copies of ribosomes together. The dimeric state of the ribosome is no longer capable of synthesizing new proteins.” – University of Groningen, 2017

Source: University of Groningen

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