Translation inhibition in Mycobacterium smegmatis by tuberactinomycins

Sammanfattning: Tuberculosis continues to be a global health threat as multiple drug-resistant tuberculosis and extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis become increasingly rampant. Tuberactinomycins, specifically capreomycin, administered in combination with other medicines, remains one of the effective strategies against these deadly strains of tuberculosis. Albeit discovered and developed in 1950s and 1960s, viomycin and capreomycin still undergo intensive research aimed at studying their mechanism of inhibition. For these tuberactinomycin antibiotics, their inhibitory effect during the translation process has been explored. Nevertheless, previous research mainly employed Escherichia coli as the model bacteria, which is not the actual target of these drugs. Mycobacterium smegmatis, the model bacteria for the disease-causing Mycobacteria, has rarely been used to examine the effect of these two drugs. Hence, this project focuses on the translation inhibition of M. smegmatis by these two tuberactinomycin antibiotics. By comparing the inhibitory effect of capreomycin and viomycin between E. coli and M. smegmatis translation systems, insights can be gained into their inhibitory mechanism. The knowledge gained can be used to improve specific drugs and, to adopt new strategies to combat tuberculosis, potentially eradicating this deadly disease.