Thanks to a new class of active ingredients, researchers can better understand how bacteria become resistant to antibiotics and tumor cells resist chemotherapy: Biochemists from the University of Frankfurt, together with colleagues from Tokyo, have analyzed the effects of macrocyclic peptides on transport systems in cell membranes.
Sascha Zoske
Journalist in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.
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With molecular pumps, bacteria and cancer cells can push substances that harm them out of the cell.
New therapeutic approaches therefore aim to inhibit these pumps.
One class of possible inhibitors are macrocyclic peptides.
There are billions of variants of such closed-loop amino acid chains that can be produced for experimental and therapeutic purposes.
Findings for new drugs
The researchers led by Robert Tampé and Hiroaki Suga have investigated how macrocyclic peptides paralyze the membrane pumps.
They do this by attaching themselves to the pump at a certain point in the transport process.
The scientists can slow down the transport process and thus recognize when and where the peptide intervenes.
Among other things, they found out which step supplies the energy with which antibiotics are removed from the cell.
The findings could help develop new drugs.
Link to the study