A tale of two antibiotics : Fusidic acid and Viomycin

Antibiotics that target the bacterial ribosome make up about half of all clinically used antibiotics. We have studied two ribosome targeting drugs: Fusidic acid and Viomycin. Fusidic acid inhibits bacterial protein synthesis by binding to elongation factor G (EF-G) on the ribosome, thereby inhibiting translocation of the bacterial ribosome. Viomycin binds directly to the ribosome and inhibits both the fidelity of mRNA decoding and translocation. We found that the mechanisms of inhibition of these two antibiotics were unexpectedly complex. Fusidic acid can bind to EF-G on the ribosome during three separate stages of translocation. Binding of the drug to the first and most sensitive state does not lead to stalling of the ribosome. Rather the ribosome continues unhindered to a downstream state where it stalls for around 8 seconds. Dissociation of fusidic acid from this state allows the ribosome to continue translocating but it soon reaches yet another fusidic acid sensitive state where it can be stalled again, this time for 6 seconds. Viomycin inhibits translocation by binding to the pre-translocation ribosome in competition with EF-G. If viomycin binds before EF-G it stalls the ribosome for 44 seconds, much longer than a normal elongation cycle. Both viomycin and fusidic acid probably cause long queues of ribosomes to build up on the mRNA when they bind. Viomycin inhibits translational fidelity by binding to the ribosome during initial selection. We found that the concentration of viomycin required to bind to the ribosome with a given probability during decoding is proportional to the accuracy of the codon∙anticodon pair being decoded. This demonstrated that long standing models about ribosomal accuracy cannot be correct. Finally, we demonstrated that a common viomycin resistance mutation increases the drug binding rate and decreases its dissociation rate. Our results demonstrate that ribosome targeting drugs have unexpectedly complex mechanisms of action. Both fusidic acid and viomycin preferentially bind to conformations of the ribosome other than those that they stabilize. This suggests that determining the structures of stable drug-bound states may not give sufficient information for drug design