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RNA as a Drug Target: The Case of Aminoglycosides
Author(s) -
Vicens Quentin,
Westhof Eric
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
chembiochem
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.05
H-Index - 126
eISSN - 1439-7633
pISSN - 1439-4227
DOI - 10.1002/cbic.200300684
Subject(s) - ribosome , mitochondrial ribosome , rna , translation (biology) , biology , ribosomal rna , antibiotics , computational biology , binding site , microbiology and biotechnology , chemistry , genetics , messenger rna , gene
How to prevent antibiotic therapies from hitting a snag : Most antibiotics target molecular switches on the ribosome. The binding sites are discrete and made of conserved RNA residues rather than ribosomal proteins (see representation of paromycin binding to the ribosome). However, bacteria have evolved and mutated so that the antibiotics cannot bind. At least two types of new molecules could be designed to keep up in this race against evolution: 1) drugs that would bind to the mutated bacterial sites but not (to avoid toxicity) with human cytoplasmic and mitochondrial ribosomes, and 2) drugs that would interfere with other molecular switches involved in translation or regulation pathways.