Beta-lactam
Channel: all the knowledge of the universe PRINCIPIA
Date: 2021-12-08

Beta-lactam, by Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=4427 / CC BY SA 3.0

#Beta-lactams
#Four-membered_rings
2-Azetidinone, the simplest β-lactam A beta-lactam （β-lactam） ring is a four-membered lactam.
A lactam is a cyclic amide, and beta-lactams are named so because the nitrogen atom is attached to the β-carbon atom relative to the carbonyl.
The simplest β-lactam possible is 2-azetidinone.
β-lactams are significant structural units of medicines as manifested in many β-Lactam antibiotics Up to 1970, most β-lactam research was concerned with the penicillin and cephalosporin groups,
but since then, a wide variety of structures have been described.
Penicillin core structure The β-lactam ring is part of the core structure of several antibiotic families, the principal ones being the penicillins, cephalosporins, carbapenems, and monobactams, which are, therefore, also called β-lactam antibiotics.
Nearly all of these antibiotics work by inhibiting bacterial cell wall biosynthesis.
This has a lethal effect on bacteria, although any given bacteria population will typically contain a subgroup that is resistant to β-lactam antibiotics.
Bacterial resistance occurs as a result of the expression of one of many genes for the production of β-lactamases, a class of enzymes that break open the β-lactam ring.
More than 1,800 different β-lactamase enzymes have been documented in various species of bacteria.
These enzymes vary widely in their chemical structure and catalytic efficiencies.
When bacterial populations have these resistant subgroups, treatment with β-lactam can result in the resistant strain becoming more prevalent and therefore more virulent.
β-lactam derived antibiotics can be considered one of the most important antibiotic classes but prone to clinical resistance.
β-lactam exhibits its antibiotic properties by imitating the naturally occurring d-Ala-d-Ala substrate for the group of enzymes known as penicillin binding proteins （PBP）,
which have as function to cr...