Researchers Find Antibiotics Work by Attacking DNA
Penicillin and other antibiotics have revolutionized medicine, turning once-deadly diseases into easily treatable ailments. However, while antibiotics have been in use for more than 70 years, the exact mechanism by which they kill bacteria has remained a mystery.
Now a new study by MIT and Boston Univ. researchers reveals the killing mechanism behind all three major classes of antibiotics: the drugs produce destructive molecules that fatally damage bacterial DNA through a long chain of cellular events. Understanding the details of this mechanism could help scientists improve existing drugs, according to the researchers. Few new antibiotics have been developed in the past 40 years, and many strains of bacteria have become resistant to the drugs now available.
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