Antibiotics that act on nucleic acids and protein biosynsthesis

Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on the various antibiotics that act on nucleic acids and protein biosynthesis. As folate biosynthesis is essential to the growth and survival of bacteria, and the reduced form, tetrahydrofolate (THF), acts as a carrier for the carbon fragments used in the biosynthesis of bases that form the coding sequence of the nucleic acids. The precise mechanisms associated with nucleic acid replication, transcription and translation are very similar in all living systems whether bacterial or eukaryotic, plant or animal. Although they therefore represent prime targets for biocidal action, selective toxicity at such targets must exploit fine differences in these divergently evolved cellular processes. Moreover, this chapter explores precursor synthesis which illustrates that a common element of all living cells is the use of folic acid, in its reduced tbrm (tetrahydrofblate), as a carrier of carbon fragments involved in the biosynthesis of the nucleic acid bases. Of primary importance is the folate-dependent enzyme thymidylate synthetase.