Figure 1.

Antibiotic uptake in P. aeruginosa. Aminoglycosides diffuse through the outer membrane due to electrostatic interactions between the positively charged aminoglycoside and the negatively charged LPS. They undergo rapid energy-dependent accumulation into the cell with the use of electron transport and ATP hydrolysis. Once inside the cell, aminoglycosides bind to the 30S subunit of ribosomes to inhibit protein synthesis. β-lactam antibiotics target trans-peptidases on the cytoplasmic membrane that play a vital role in the assembly and cross-linking of cell wall peptidoglycan. Macrolides diffuse across the lipid bilayer due to their hydrophobic nature. They bind to the 50S ribosomal subunit and cause the dissociation of peptidyl-tRNA from the ribosome inside the cell. Quinolones inhibit DNA gyrase and DNA topoisomerase IV in Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria, respectively, leading to double stranded DNA breaks. Protein and drug structures were generated with Protein Imager (Tomasello et al., 2020).