Princeton team learns why some drugs pack such a punch

Princeton - Princeton - By studying the intricate mechanisms at work in protein production, a Princeton-led team has discovered why certain kinds of antibiotics are so effective. In doing so, they also have discovered how one protein protects against cell death, shedding light on a natural cancer-fighting process. In a study appearing in the Aug. 7 edition of the journal Science, Thomas Silhavy , Princeton's Warner-Lambert Parke-Davis Professor of Molecular Biology , and Johna van Stelten, a graduate student, working with two Swiss researchers have uncovered how some antibiotics in common use for 50 years - tetracycline and chloramphenicol - can be so lethal against certain strains of bacteria. Simply put, these drugs plug things up. Silhavy and van Stelten had been studying the mechanism by which proteins - from antibodies to hormones - are produced in bacteria's cytoplasm, the gooey substance that makes up the cell's interior, and then transported where they are needed. The spaghetti-like proteins exit the bacteria's cytoplasm through microscopic tubes known as translocators.