2h6a

Publication Abstract from PubMed

One mechanism by which bacteria can escape the action of beta-lactam antibiotics is the production of metallo-beta-lactamases. Inhibition of these enzymes should restore the action of these widely used antibiotics. The tetrameric enzyme L1 from Stenotrophomonas maltophilia was used as a model system to determine a series of high-resolution crystal structures of apo, mono and bi-metal substituted proteins as well as protein-inhibitor complexes. Unexpectedly, although the apo structure revealed only few significant structural differences from the holo structure, some inhibitors were shown to induce amino acid side-chain rotations in the tightly packed active site. Moreover, one inhibitor employs a new binding mode in order to interact with the di-zinc center. This structural information could prove essential in the process of elucidation of the mode of interaction between a putative lead compound and metallo-beta-lactamases, one of the main steps in structure-based drug design.

Structural insights into the design of inhibitors for the L1 metallo-beta-lactamase from Stenotrophomonas maltophilia.,Nauton L, Kahn R, Garau G, Hernandez JF, Dideberg O J Mol Biol. 2008 Jan 4;375(1):257-69. Epub 2007 Oct 22. PMID:17999929^[1]

From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.