Courtesy of Junmei Wang
Streptomycin is one of the oldest antibiotics, but it is still not known how this relatively large drug enters bacterial cells.
A team of researchers from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, previously found that increased expression of a channel found in bacterial cell membranes, known as MscL, can enhance the potency of dihydrostreptomycin.
In a new study, published in PLoS Biology (online, 9 June 2016)[1]
, members of the same team used a combination of genetic, molecular-dynamic and computational approaches to explore whether dihydrostreptomycin binds to MscL. They showed that the antibiotic does bind to the receptor, resulting in a conformational change that allows it to enter the cell.
The researchers suggest their findings could be used in the development of new antibiotics targeting the same channel.
References
[1] Wray R, Iscla I, Gao Y et al. Dihydrostreptomycin directly binds to, modulates, and passes through the MscL channel pore. PLoS Biology 2016;14:e1002473. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1002473
