Imide and isatin derivatives as γ-lactam mimics of ß-lactam antibiotics

Lactam Antibiotics

A novel endopeptidase degrading the pel)tide cross-links in sacculi has been isolated from Escherichia coli and purified to homogeneity. I'lhe enzyme has a molecular weight of 30,000 and, in contrast to already known enzymes of similar specificity, remains fully active in the presence of/3-lactam antibiotics. In adldition, it is exceptional in being inhibited by single-strandetl tleoxyribonucle...

Beta-Lactam Antibiotics and Vancomycin Beta-lactam antibiotics

Anti-bacterial drugs have “selective toxicity”, that is they interact with a target present on the bacterial cell, the prokaryote, that is not present in the mammalian host, the eukaryote. For the ß-lactam drugs, this target is the cell wall. Mammalian cells lack cell walls, which for the bacteria are a critically important barrier protecting the organism from not only the vagaries of osmotic s...

-Lactam Antibiotics

β-Lactam Antibiotics Renaissance.

Since the 1940s β-lactam antibiotics have been used to treat bacterial infections. However, emergence and dissemination of β-lactam resistance has reached the point where many marketed β-lactams no longer are clinically effective. The increasing prevalence of multidrug-resistant bacteria and the progressive withdrawal of pharmaceutical companies from antibiotic research have evoked a strong rea...

Chemistry of Beta Lactam Antibiotics

Humans have been plagued with the threat of bacterial infection since before the dawn of recorded history, and have thus always had a keen interest in finding a suitable treatment for these maladies. In the early part of the 19th century, colonial Americans were fearful of death by bacterial infections that are now considered routine, and usually inquired about one another's health in their let...