Spanish molecular biologists have discovered a mechanism that allows microbial populations to rapidly change the structure of ribosomes, the “protein factories” of bacteria, and protect them from the action of many popular antibiotics. This was reported by the press service of the Spanish Center for Genomic Regulation (CRG).
“For the first time we have observed how the structure of ribosomal RNA molecules changes in the natural environment of their functioning. Thanks to this, we discovered that E. coli cells are capable of changing the structure of these RNA molecules in a very subtle way and in real time. This is a very elegant and discreet way to evade drug attacks.” — explained the CRG researcher Eva Novoawhose words are cited by the center’s press service.
As scientists point out, a significant portion of the antibiotics currently used inhibit the growth of bacteria because the molecules of these drugs can integrate into the RNA components of ribosomes, the protein assembly machines in microbial cells. This causes dysfunctions in their work and leads to the cessation of the formation of new amino acid chains, which causes the cessation of growth or mass death of pathogens.
In many cases, bacteria quickly adapt to the action of these antibiotics, the mechanisms of which remain unknown to scientists. To discover them, Spanish biologists have developed a special approach that allows them to monitor changes in the structure of the RNA molecules that form the basis of ribosomes when various types of antibiotics appear inside microbial cells.
Using this method, the scientists monitored how different strains of E. coli responded to two antibiotic molecules, streptomycin and kasugamycin. These experiments showed that the appearance of drugs inside the cytoplasm of microbes led to the fact that ribosomal RNA molecules changed their structure, and these changes occurred very quickly.
These changes were manifested in the fact that the arrival of antibiotics caused the disappearance of many modifications in the structure of RNA chains, similar in essence to the epigenetic marks that regulate the functioning of genes in DNA chains. Their removal of ribosomal components changed their structure in such a way that antibiotic molecules stopped combining with ribosomal RNA, which prevents them from blocking the work of the “protein factories” of cells. Scientists hope that understanding this will help create new drugs that prevent microbes from removing such marks from RNA molecules, TASS reports.
