Difference between revisions of "Kanamycin"

Revision as of 05:33, 11 September 2010

Kanamycin sulfate is an aminoglycoside antibiotic, available in both oral and intravenous forms, and used to treat a wide variety of infections. Kanamycin is isolated from Streptomyces kanamyceticus^[1].

Pharmacology

Kanamycin interacts with the 30S subunit of prokaryotic ribosomes. It induces substantial amounts of mistranslation and indirectly inhibits translocation during protein synthesis^[2][3].

Side effects

Serious side effects include tinnitus or loss of hearing, toxicity to kidneys, and allergic reactions to the drug.^[4]

Use in research

Kanamycin is used in molecular biology as a selective agent most commonly to isolate bacteria (e.g., E. coli) which have taken up genes (e.g., of plasmids) coupled to a gene coding for kanamycin resistance (primarily Neomycin phosphotransferase II [NPT II/Neo]). Bacteria that have been transformed with a plasmid containing the kanamycin resistance gene are plated on kanamycin (50-100ug/ml) containing agar plates or are grown in media containing kanamycin (50-100ug/ml). Only the bacteria that have successfully taken up the kanamycin resistance gene become resistant and will grow under these conditions. As a powder kanamycin is white to off-white and is soluble in water (50mg/ml).

Mammalian cells and other eukaryotes are screened using G418, a similar aminoglycoside antibiotic, which KanMX confers resistance against.

At least one such gene, Atwbc19^[5] is native to a plant species, of comparatively large size and its coded protein acts in a manner which decreases the possibility of Horizontal Gene Transfer from the plant to bacteria; it may be incapable of giving resistance to kanamycin to bacteria even if gene transfer occurs.

References

ar:كاناميسين de:Kanamycine es:Kanamicina fr:Kanamycine it:Kanamicina ja:カナマイシン pl:Kanamycyna pt:Canamicina ru:Канамицин sl:Kanamicin sr:Kanamicin th:กานามัยซิน

1. ↑ Garrod, L.P., et al.: "Antibiotic and Chemotherapy", page 131. Churchill Livingstone, 1981
2. ↑ Pestka, S.: "The Use of Inhibitors in Studies on Protein Synthesis", Methods in Enzymology 30, pp.261-282, 1975
3. ↑ Misumi, M. & Tanaka, N.: "Mechanism of Inhibition of Translocation by Kanamycin and Viomycin: A Comparative Study with Fusidic Acid, Biochem.Biophys.Res.Commun. 92, pp.647-654, 1980
4. ↑ Consumer Drug Information: Kanamycin, 2 April 2008, retrieved 2008-05-04 
5. ↑ Horizontal Gene Transfer: Plant vs. Bacterial Genes for Antibiotic Resistance Scenario's—What's the Difference?