Vancomycin–Arginine Conjugate Inhibits Growth of Carbapenem-Resistant E. coli and Targets Cell-Wall Synthesis
摘要:
The emergence of multi-drug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria, including carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae, is a major health problem that necessitates the development of new antibiotics. Vancomycin inhibits cell-wall synthesis in Gram-positive bacteria but is generally ineffective against Gram-negative bacteria and is unable to penetrate the outer membrane barrier. In an effort to determine whether vancomycin and other antibiotics effective against Gram-positive bacteria could, through modification, be rendered effective against Gram-negative bacteria, we discovered that the covalent attachment of a single arginine to vancomycin yielded conjugates with order-of-magnitude improvements in activity against Gram-negative bacteria, including pathogenic E. coli. The vancomycin-arginine conjugate (V-R) exhibited efficacy against actively growing bacteria, induced the loss of rod cellular morphology, and resulted in the intracellular accumulation of peptidoglycan precursors, all consistent with cell-wall synthesis disruption as its mechanism of action. Membrane permeabilization studies demonstrated an enhanced outer membrane permeability of V-R as compared with vancomycin. The conjugate exhibited no mammalian cell toxicity or hemolytic activity in MTT and hemolysis assays. Our study introduces a new vancomycin derivative effective against Gram-negative bacteria and underscores the broader potential of generating new antibiotics through combined mode-of-action and synthesis-informed design studies.
Conformational Preference in Bis(porphyrin) Tweezer Complexes: A Versatile Chirality Sensor for α-Chiral Carboxylic Acids
作者:Marina Tanasova、Babak Borhan
DOI:10.1002/ejoc.201200147
日期:2012.6
determinant of binding conformation. Experimental results indicate that a balance between linker flexibility and rigidity could yield an optimum porphyrintweezer that stabilizes a common conformation for all bound chiral guests. This leads to a more simplified approach to absolute stereochemical determination of asymmetry for small organic molecules. This was demonstrated by the use of a C3-linked zincated