Rifamycins are a group of antibiotics that kill bacterial cells by inhibiting RNA polymerase. These antibiotics are widely used to treat tuberculosis, a disease that kills almost 2 million people worldwide each year. The structures of bacterial and eukaryotic RNA polymerases are sufficiently different that rifamycins can inhibit bacterial RNA polymerases without interfering with eukaryotic RNA polymerases. Recent research has demonstrated that several rifamycins work by binding to the part of the bacterial RNA polymerase that clamps onto DNA and jamming it, thus preventing the RNA polymerase from interacting with the promoter on the DNA.
Recent comments