The mechanisms of antibiotic action can be highly context specific. Using in-cell cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET) of Mycoplasma pneumoniae — a causative agent of respiratory disease — we visualized the context-dependent action of the ribosome-targeting antibiotic chloramphenicol simultaneously at atomic, molecular and cellular levels. This work highlights how in-cell structural biology can expand our understanding of antibiotic mechanisms of action.
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Fig. 1: Chloramphenicol-bound ribosomes from inside M. pneumoniae cells.
References
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This is a summary of: Xue, L., Spahn, C. M. T., Schacherl, M. & Mahamid, J. Structural insights into context-dependent inhibitory mechanisms of chloramphenicol in cells. Nat. Struct. Mol. Biol. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41594-024-01441-0 (2024).
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Visualizing antibiotic action in a pathogenic bacterium at atomic to cellular scale. Nat Struct Mol Biol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41594-024-01442-z
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Published:12 December 2024
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41594-024-01442-z
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