[Seminar] "Next Generation Species Specific and Eco Friendly Antibiotics Alongside Thoughts on Origin of Life" by Prof. Ada Yonath, Weizmann Institute

Speaker: Prof. Ada Yonath, Nobel Laureate in chemistry 2009, Weizmann Institute of Science

Title: Next Generation Species Specific and Eco Friendly Antibiotics Alongside Thoughts on Origin of Life  

Abstract:

Resistance to antibiotics is a severe problem in contemporary medicine. Many antibiotics inhibit protein biosynthesis by hampering the ribosome function. Structures of bacterial ribosomes in complex with these antibiotics illuminated the common pathways of antibiotics inhibitory action, i.e. paralyzing the ribosome by binding to its primary functional sites, namely the decoding and the peptide bind formation centers. The latter, fully conserved pocket rRNA pocket, called by us the “proto ribosome”, is suggested to be the entity around which life originated. 

For shedding light on the species-specific diversity in infectious-diseases susceptibility, the recently obtained structures of ribosome from several multi-resistant pathogenic bacteria were carefully compared to ribosomes from harmless bacteria. These comparisons revealed novel structural motifs, essential to protein biosynthesis but not located within the primary ribosomal active sites. Hence, no genetically encoded mechanisms for modification of these sites are currently known, thus can serve as anchors for new antibiotics. Hence, enable the design of next generation species-specific antibiotics, with reduced resistance and selectivity that should preserve the microbiome. Additionally, these novel compounds can be optimized in terms of their chemical properties, toxicity and cellular penetration, alongside significant bio-degradability, or being made of non-eco hazardous materials. Thus, their usage should minimize or even eliminate the ecological hazards caused by the spread of the non-degradable metabolites of the currently used antibiotics.

Careful inspections of some of the rRNA extensions of ribosomes from pathogens, revealed close to identity with features identified in eukaryotic ribosomes, hence leading to the intriguing question: is pathogenicity part of the missing link between eubacteria and eukaryotes? 

Website: 

http://www.weizmann.ac.il/sb/Pages/Yonath/

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2009/yonath/facts/