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Viomycin and capreomycin belong to the tuberactinomycin family of antibiotics, which are among the most effective antibiotics against multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. Here we present two crystal structures of the 70S ribosome in complex with three tRNAs and bound to either viomycin or capreomycin at 3.3- and 3.5-Å resolution, respectively. Both antibiotics bind to the same site on the ribosome, which lies at the interface between helix 44 of the small ribosomal subunit and helix 69 of the large ribosomal subunit. The structures of these complexes suggest that the tuberactinomycins inhibit translocation by stabilizing the tRNA in the A site in the pretranslocation state. In addition, these structures show that the tuberactinomycins bind adjacent to the binding sites for the paromomycin and hygromycin B antibiotics, which may enable the development of new derivatives of tuberactinomycins that are effective against drug-resistant strains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During protein synthesis, transfer RNA and messenger RNA undergo coupled translocation through the ribosome's A, P and E sites, a process catalyzed by elongation factor EF-G. Viomycin blocks translocation on bacterial ribosomes and is believed to bind at the subunit interface. Using fluorescent resonance energy transfer and chemical footprinting, we show that viomycin traps the ribosome in an intermediate state of translocation. Changes in FRET efficiency show that viomycin causes relative movement of the two ribosomal subunits indistinguishable from that induced by binding of EF-G with GDPNP. Chemical probing experiments indicate that viomycin induces formation of a hybrid-state translocation intermediate. Thus, viomycin inhibits translation through a unique mechanism, locking ribosomes in the hybrid state; the EF-G-induced 'ratcheted' state observed by cryo-EM is identical to the hybrid state; and, since translation is viomycin sensitive, the hybrid state may be present in vivo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In aqueous solution, exchanging peptide NH protons experience two environments, that of the peptide itself with a relatively slow diffusion coefficient and that of the water solvent with a faster diffusion coefficient. Although in slow exchange on the NMR chemical shift timescale, the magnetic field gradient dependence of the NH peak intensities in an experiment used to measure diffusion coefficients reflects the relative time periods spent in the two environments and this allows the determination of the relative solvent accessibility of exchangeable protons in peptides or proteins. To test this approach, the magnetic field gradient dependent intensities of the chemically shifted amide and amine NH protons of the peptide antibiotic viomycin have been measured using the high resolution longitudinal-eddy-current-delay (LED) NMR method incorporating solvent water peak elimination by non-excitation. The NH resonances of viomycin have been assigned previously and their relative exchange rates determined. Here, the gradient dependence of each NH proton intensity is reported, and these, after a bi- exponential least squares fitting, yield the fractional lifetimes of the protons spent in the peptide and water environments during the diffusion period of the experiment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]