MraY–antibiotic complex reveals details of tunicamycin mode of action
January 9th, 2017 by Jonna K Hakulinen
Nature Chemical Biology 13, 265 (2017). doi:10.1038/nchembio.2270
Authors: Jonna K Hakulinen, Jenny Hering, Gisela Brändén, Hongming Chen, Arjan Snijder, Margareta Ek & Patrik Johansson
The rapid increase of antibiotic resistance has created an urgent need to develop novel antimicrobial agents. Here we describe the crystal structure of the promising bacterial target phospho-N-acetylmuramoyl–pentapeptide translocase (MraY) in complex with the nucleoside antibiotic tunicamycin. The structure not only reveals the mode of action of several related natural-product antibiotics but also gives an indication on the binding mode of the MraY UDP–MurNAc–pentapeptide and undecaprenyl-phosphate substrates.