Bacteria is Studied at the Atomic Level

U.S. scientists are using powerful imaging techniques to determine what happens between bacteria and antibiotics at the atomic level.

Ohio State University Associate Professor of microbiology Irina Artsimovitch said the work is providing the most detailed view yet of an enzyme structure that’s key in bacteria functioning.

In one of two studies, the team created a detailed image of the elongation complex — a structure formed by RNA polymerase, the enzyme responsible for setting gene expression in motion in a process called transcription.

This structure is important from a physiological point of view, not only for antibiotic design, but also because faults in the complex have been implicated in many diseases such as hereditary cancers, said Artsimovitch.

In the second study, the team learned how the antibiotic streptolydigin blocks transcription.

We have to know what we’re looking at — and working with — before it’s possible to make a useful antibiotic, Artsimovitch said. Now we can. Now we can see where the enzyme and antibiotic make contact at the atomic level.

The studies, which included scientists from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Wisconsin-Madison and the Nebraska Medical Center, are reported in the journal Nature.