High-resolution crystal structures of ribosome-bound chloramphenicol and erythromycin provide the ultimate basis for their competition.

Publication Type:

Journal Article

Source:

RNA (2019)

Abstract:

<p>The 70S ribosome is a major target for antibacterial drugs. Two of the classical antibiotics, chloramphenicol (CHL) and erythromycin (ERY), competitively bind to adjacent but separate sites on the bacterial ribosome: the catalytic peptidyl transferase center (PTC) and the nascent polypeptide exit tunnel (NPET), respectively. The previously reported competitive binding of CHL and ERY might be due either to a direct collision of the two drugs on the ribosome or due to a drug-induced allosteric effect. Because of the resolution limitations, the available structures of these antibiotics in complex with bacterial ribosomes do not allow us to discriminate between these two possible mechanisms. In this work, we have obtained two crystal structures of CHL and ERY in complex with the Thermus thermophilus 70S ribosome at a higher resolution (2.65Å and 2.89Å, respectively) allowing unambiguous placement of the drugs in the electron density maps. Our structures provide evidence of the direct collision of CHL and ERY on the ribosome, which rationalizes the observed competition between the two drugs.</p>

PDB: 
6ND5 for the T. thermophilus 70S ribosome in complex with chloramphenicol, mRNA, A-, P- and E-site tRNAs; 6ND6 for the T. thermophilus 70S ribosome in complex with erythromycin, mRNA, A-, P- and E-site tRNAs.
Detector: 
PILATUS
EIGER
Beamline: 
24-ID-C
24-ID-E