Raman microspectroscopy combined with Raman difference spectroscopy reveals the details of chemical reactions within bacterial cells. The method provides direct quantitative data on penetration of druglike molecules into Escherichia coli cells in situ along with the details of drug-target reactions. With this label-free technique, clavulanic acid and tazobactam can be observed as they penetrate...

β-Lactamases inactivate β-lactam antibiotics by hydrolysis of their endocyclic β-lactam bond and are a major cause of antibiotic resistance in pathogenic bacteria. The zinc dependent metallo-β-lactamase enzymes are of particular concern since they are located on highly transmissible plasmids and have a broad spectrum of activity against almost all β-lactam antibiotics. We present here essential...

The hydrolysis of β-lactam antibiotics by β-lactamases is one of the major bacterial defense systems. These enzymes generally hydrolyze a variety of antibiotics including the latest generation of cephalosporins, cephamycins and imipenem. In this paper, the effect of cephalosporins-based antibiotics on the peroxynitrite-mediated nitration of protein tyrosine is described. Although some of the an...

The beta-lactamase stability and inhibitory activity of 1-oxa cephalosporin, (6R,7R)-7-[[carboxy(4-hydroxyphenyl)acetyl]amino]-7-methoxy-3-[[(1-methyl-1H-tetrazol-5-yl)thio]methyl]-8-oxo-5-oxa-1-azabicyclo[4.2.0]oct-2-ene-2-carboxylic acid, was investigated and compared to that of cefoxitin and cefotaxime. There was no detectable beta-lactamase hydrolysis of 1-oxa cephalosporin, cefotaxime and ...

A conjugation system initially discovered in beta-lactamase-producing gonococci mobilized small non-selftransmissible R plasmids encoding beta-lactamase (penicillinase) production into other gonococci, Neisseria, and Escherichia coli. This conjugation system was mediated by a separate selftransmissible plasmid of 23.9 X 10(6) daltons, pFA2. Conjugative plasmids capable of mobilizing R plasmids ...

Introduction of hybrid plasmids, which were constructed by ligation of pCR1 or pMN1 vector plasmid and SalI restriction endonuclease cleaved segments of Streptomyces cacaoi chromosome, resulted in the production of new beta-lactamase and penicillin-binding protein in Escherichia coli. The beta-lactamase and penicillin-binding protein were not from S. cacaoi but rather induced by the plasmids. C...