No abstract

SignificanceThe recent increase in multidrug-resistant pathogenic bacteria is limiting the utility of our current arsenal of clinically important antibiotics. The development of improved antibiotics would therefore benefit from a better understanding of the current resistance mechanisms employed by bacteria. Many Gram-positive bacteria, including pathogenic Staphylococcus aureus and Enterococcus faecalis, utilize ribosome protection proteins to confer resistance to medically relevant antibiotics, such as streptogramins A, lincosamides, and pleuromutilins. We have employed cryo-electron microscopy to reveal the structural basis for how the Bacillus subtilis VmlR protein binds to the ribosome to confer resistance to the streptogramin A antibiotic virginiamycin M, the lincosamide lincomycin, and the pleuromutilin tiamulin.

Many antibiotics stop bacterial growth by inhibiting different steps of protein synthesis. However, no specific inhibitors of translation termination are known. Proline-rich antimicrobial peptides, a component of the antibacterial defense system of multicellular organisms, interfere with bacterial growth by inhibiting translation. Here we show that Api137, a derivative of the insect-produced antimicrobial peptide apidaecin, arrests terminating ribosomes using a unique mechanism of action. Api137 binds to the Escherichia coli ribosome and traps release factors 1 or 2 subsequent to release of the nascent polypeptide chain. A high-resolution cryo-EM structure of the ribosome complexed with release factor 1 and Api137 reveals the molecular interactions that lead to release factor trapping. Api137-mediated depletion of the cellular pool of free release factors causes the majority of ribosomes to stall at stop codons prior to polypeptide release, thereby resulting in a global shutdown of translation termination.

Ribosomes synthesizing proteins containing consecutive proline residues become stalled and require rescue via the action of uniquely modified translation elongation factors, EF-P in bacteria, or archaeal/eukaryotic a/eIF5A. To date, no structures exist of EF-P or eIF5A in complex with translating ribosomes stalled at polyproline stretches, and thus structural insight into how EF-P/eIF5A rescue these arrested ribosomes has been lacking. Here we present cryo-EM structures of ribosomes stalled on proline stretches, without and with modified EF-P. The structures suggest that the favored conformation of the polyproline-containing nascent chain is incompatible with the peptide exit tunnel of the ribosome and leads to destabilization of the peptidyl-tRNA. Binding of EF-P stabilizes the P-site tRNA, particularly via interactions between its modification and the CCA end, thereby enforcing an alternative conformation of the polyproline-containing nascent chain, which allows a favorable substrate geometry for peptide bond formation.

Proline-rich antimicrobial peptides (PrAMPs) produced as part of the innate immune response of animals, insects and plants represent a vast, untapped resource for the treatment of multidrug-resistant bacterial infections. PrAMPs such as oncocin or bactenecin-7 (Bac7) interact with the bacterial ribosome to inhibit translation, but their supposed specificity as inhibitors of bacterial rather than mammalian protein synthesis remains unclear, despite being key to developing drugs with low toxicity. Here, we present crystal structures of the Thermus thermophilus 70S ribosome in complex with the first 16 residues of mammalian Bac7, as well as the insect-derived PrAMPs metalnikowin I and pyrrhocoricin. The structures reveal that the mammalian Bac7 interacts with a similar region of the ribosome as insect-derived PrAMPs. Consistently, Bac7 and the oncocin derivative Onc112 compete effectively with antibiotics, such as erythromycin, which target the ribosomal exit tunnel. Moreover, we demonstrate that Bac7 allows initiation complex formation but prevents entry into the elongation phase of translation, and show that it inhibits translation on both mammalian and bacterial ribosomes, explaining why this peptide needs to be stored as an inactive pro-peptide. These findings highlight the need to consider the specificity of PrAMP derivatives for the bacterial ribosome in future drug development efforts.