Antibiotics

Sulfa Drugs

One of the very first antibiotics ever used was a dye called Prontosil Red. In the early 1930s a doctor named Gerhard Dogmak decided to use it to try and fight a streptococcal infection in his daughter. At this time Prontosil Red was still in testing. It had proved effective in lab mice but not when given to labratory grown bacteria. Luckily for Dogmak's daughter, her recovery was fast and complete. This is because in the body the dye breaks down to produce sulfanilamide. This little molecule is very similar to p-aminobenzoic acid, an essential nutrient for bacteria as it helps them make a very important molecule, Folic Acid.

(PABA = p-aminobenzoic acid)

Folic Acid, p-aminobenzoic acid circled

Folic acid is very important in the production of nucleic acids. The bacterial enzymes involved in making Folic Acid appear to be unable to distinguish between the molecules of p-aminobenzoic acid and the look alike sulfanilamide molecules and unsuccessfully attempt to use sulfanilamide instead of p-aminobenzoic acid and ultimately die because they are not able to make enough Folic acid.

Luckily for us, we do not die from these chemicals because we rely on absorbing Folic acid from our food instead of making it. We can modify the sulfanilamide molecule to fight different strains of bacteria by replacing one of the hydrogens from the SO2NH2 with another group.

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That was just something I found interesting!

This information actually came from an EPIC book called Napoleon's Button's and it's a seriously good book, if you're interested in chemistry I suggest you read it! everything is easy to understand!

Let me know if you found this interesting too

If you like it I'll write more about what I found out about how penicillin works!