ANTIBIOTICS that self-destruct in sunlight will stop bacteria developing resistance so quickly, say chemists in the US. Antibiotics that survive in the environment help bacteria to evolve resistance, making infections untreatable.
In a paper to be published in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, Shahriar Mobashery and colleagues from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, describe how they modified a b-lactam antibiotic to contain a hydrazine group masked by a nitrobenzyloxycarbonyl goup. Under sunlight, the nitrobenzyloxycarbonyl falls off, exposing the hydrazine, which attacks the antibiotic to stop it working. "It's the first molecule of its kind," says Mobasherry, "but the principle is valid for any antibiotic."
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