Fruit Fly Compound Could Lead to New Antibiotics
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have discovered a peptide extracted from fruit flies that could pave the way for the development of new types of antibiotics.
Their research, published in Nature Chemical Biology, reveals that a natural peptide called troxosine protects insects from bacterial infection by binding to bacterial ribosomes. Once bound, drosophilin prevents ribosomes from doing their main function normally, which is to make new proteins that cells need to function.