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by MickeyFangz Bryant on October 17th, 2011

MickeyFangz Bryant

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Why is it important for antibiotics that target ribosomes to be specific to bacterial ribosomes?

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Answers. 3 helpful answers below.

  • by iwnit on October 17th, 2011

    iwnit

    1) "Selective toxicity follows the principle of using drugs that kill the harmful microorganism without damaging the host. As a result of its toxicity, antibiotics can affect the ribosomal structure, inhibiting protein synthesis."
    Source and further information:
    http://www.cs.stedwards.edu/chem/Chemistry/CHEM43/CHEM43/Ribosomes/Ribosome.HTML


    2) "Bacterial infections may be treated with antibiotics, which are classified as bacteriocidal if they kill bacteria, or bacteriostatic if they just prevent bacterial growth. There are many types of antibiotics and each class inhibits a process that is different in the pathogen from that found in the host. An example of how antibiotics produce selective toxicity are chloramphenicol and puromycin, which inhibit the bacterial ribosome, but not the structurally different eukaryotic ribosome."
    Source and further information:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacteria

    "Drug design is facilitated when an enzyme that is essential to the pathogen's survival is absent or very different in humans. In the example above, humans do not make peptidoglycan, therefore inhibitors of this process are selectively toxic to bacteria. Selective toxicity is also produced in antibiotics by exploiting differences in the structure of the ribosomes in bacteria, or how they make fatty acids."
    Source and further information:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enzyme_inhibitor

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  • by Sethis on October 17th, 2011

    Sethis

    Because you only want to target the cause of the disease without destroying our own body.

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  • by scott3dl on October 17th, 2011

    scott3dl

    Because viruses don't have ribosomes.

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