Antibiotics as Enzymes

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Antibiotics:

Antibiotics are specific chemical substances derived from or produced by living organisms that are capable of inhibiting the life processes of other organisms. The first antibiotics were isolated from microorganisms but some are now obtained from higher plants and animals. Over 3,000 antibiotics have been identified but only a few dozen are used in medicine. Antibiotics are the most widely prescribed class of drugs comprising 12% of the prescriptions in the United States.

The penicillins were the first antibiotics discovered as natural products from the mold Penicillium. In 1928, Sir Alexander Fleming, professor of bacteriology at St. Mary’s Hospital in London, was culturing Staphylococcus aureus. He noticed zones of inhibition where mold spores were growing. He named the mold Penicillium rubrum. It was determined that a secretion of the mold was effective against Gram-positive bacteria.

Penicillins as well as cephalosporins are called beta-lactam antibiotics and are characterized by three fundamental structural requirements: the fused beta-lactam structure, and one or more substituted amino acid side chains. The lactam structure can also be viewed as the covalent bonding of pieces of two amino acids – cysteine and valine.

Penicillin-G where R = an ethyl pheny group, is the most potent of all penicillin derivatives. It has several shortcomings and is effective only against gram-positive bacteria. It may be broken down in the stomach by gastric acids and is poorly and irregularly absorbed into the blood stream. In addition many disease producing staphylococci are able to produce an enzyme capable of inactivating penicillin-G. Various semisynthetic derivatives have been produced which overcome these shortcomings.

Powerful electron-attracting groups attached to the amino acid side chain such as in phenethicillin prevent acid attack. A bulky group attached to the amino acid side chain provides steric hindrance which interfers with the enzyme attachment which would deactivate the pencillins i.e. methicillin.
Finally if the polar character is increased as in ampicillin or carbenicillin, there is a greater activiity against Gram-negative bacteria.

Penicillin Mode of Action – Enzyme Inhibition:

All penicillin derivatives produce their bacteriocidal effects by inhibition of bacterial cell wall synthesis. Specifically, the cross linking of peptides on the mucosaccharide chains is prevented. If cell walls are improperly made cell walls allow water to flow into the cell causing it to burst.

Mechanisms of Drug Actions by Enzyme Inhibition:

Gram-positive bacteria possess a thick cell wall composed of a cellulose-like structural sugar polymer covalently bound to short peptide units in layers.The polysaccharide portion of the peptidoglycan structure is made of repeating units of N-acetylglucosamine linked b-1,4 to N-acetylmuramic acid (NAG-NAMA).

The peptide varies, but begins with L-Ala and ends with D-Ala. In the middle is a dibasic amino acid, diaminopimelate (DAP). DAP  provides a linkage to the D-Ala  residue on an adjacent peptide.

The bacterial cell wall synthesis is completed when a cross link between two peptide chains attached to polysaccharide backbones is formed.

The cross linking is catalyzed by the enzyme transpeptidase. First the terminal alanine from each peptide is hydrolyzed and secondly one alanine is joined to lysine through an amide bond.

Penicillin binds at the active site of the transpeptidase enzyme that cross-links the peptidoglycan strands. It does this by mimicking the D-alanyl-D-alanine residues that would normally bind to this site. Penicillin irreversibly inhibits the enzyme transpeptidase by reacting with a serine residue in the transpeptidase. This reaction is irreversible and so the growth of the bacterial cell wall is inhibited.

Since mammal cells do not have the same type of cell walls, penicillin specifically inhibits only bacterial cell wall synthesis.

Cephalosporins:

Cephalosporins are the second major group of beta-lactam antibiotics. They differ from penicillins by having the beta-lactam ring as a 6 member ring. The other difference, which is more significant from a medicinal chemistry stand point, is the existence of a functional group (R) at position 3 of the fused ring system. This now allows for molecular variations to effect changes in properties by diversifying the groups at position 3.

The first member of the newer series of beta-lactams was isolated in 1956 from extracts of Cephalosporium acremonium, a sewer fungus.

Like penicillin, cephalosporins are valuable because of their low toxicity and their broad spectrum of action against various diseases. In this way, cephalosporin is very similar to penicillin. Cephalosporins are one of the most widely used antibiotics, and economically speaking, has about 29% of the antibiotic market. The cephalosporins are possibly the single most important group of antibiotics today and are equal in importance to penicillin.

The structure and mode of action of the cephalosporins are similar to that of penicillin. They affect bacterial growth by inhibiting cell wall synthesis, in Gram-positive and negative bacteria.

Some brand names include: cefachlor, cefadroxil, cefoxitin, ceftriaxone.

Sulfonamides or Sulfa Drugs as Antimetabolites:

The sulfonamides are synthetic antimicrobial agents with a wide spectrum encompassing most gram-positive and many gram-negative organisms. These drugs were the first efficient treatment to be employed systematically for the prevention and cure of bacterial infections.

Their use introduced and substantiated the concept of metabolic antagonism. Sulfonamides, as antimetabolites, compete with para-aminobenzoic acid (PABA) for incorporation into folic acid. The action of sulfonamides illustrates the principle of selective toxicity where some difference between mammal cells and bacterial cells is exploited. All cells require folic acid for growth. Folic acid (as a vitamin is in food) diffuses or is transported into human cells. However, folic acid cannot cross bacterial cell walls by diffusion or active transport. For this reason bacteria must synthesize folic acid from p-aminobenzoic acid.

Sulfa Drugs – Mechanism for Action:

Normally folic acid is synthesized in two steps in bacteria by the top reaction on the left. If A sulfa drug is used, the first enzyme is not to specific and can use the sulfonamide in the first reaction. This reaction produces the product containing pteridine and the sulfa drug.

The next and final step is the reaction PABA + with glutamic acid to make folic acid. If the sulfa drug has been substituted for the PABA, then the final enzyme is inhibited and no folic acid is produced.

Recent studies indicate that substituents on the N(1) nitrogen may play the role of competing for a site on the enzyme surface reserved for the glutamate residue in p-aminobenzoic acid-glutamate through one of the following two ways:

a) Direct competition in the linking of PABA-glutamate with the pteridine derivative.

b) Indirect interference with the coupling of glutamate to dihydropteroic acid.