Deconstructing Vancomycin
- 16 April 1999
- journal article
- editorial
- Published by American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Science
- Vol. 284 (5413) , 442-443
- https://doi.org/10.1126/science.284.5413.442
Abstract
The glycopeptide antibiotic vancomycin is a drug of last resort for treating Gram-positive bacterial infections that do not respond to other antibiotics. But there have been recent reports of multi�drug-resistant bacteria that are even resistant to vancomycin. [ Ge et al .][1] now report the synthesis of vancomycin analogs that are more powerful than the parent compound in killing both vancomycin-sensitive and vancomycin-resistant Gram-positive bacteria. In a Perspective, Walsh explains how the new analogs kill bacteria by blocking a different step in the pathway of bacterial cell wall synthesis. These findings suggest that simple sugar fragments may form a new class of antibiotics. [][2] [1]: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/284/5413/507 [2]: http://Keywords
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