Aminoglycoside is a medicinal and bacteriologic category of traditional Gram-negative antibacterial medications that inhibit protein synthesis and contain as a portion of the molecule an amino-modified glycoside (sugar).[1][2] The term can also refer more generally to any organic molecule that contains amino sugar substructures. Aminoglycoside antibiotics display bactericidal activity against Gram-negative aerobes and some anaerobic bacilli where resistance has not yet arisen but generally not against Gram-positive and anaerobic Gram-negative bacteria.[3]
Streptomycin is the first-in-class aminoglycoside antibiotic. It is derived from Streptomyces griseus and is the earliest modern agent used against tuberculosis. Streptomycin lacks the common 2-deoxystreptamine moiety (image right, below) present in most other members of this class. Other examples of aminoglycosides include the deoxystreptamine-containing agents kanamycin, tobramycin, gentamicin, and neomycin (see below).
- ^ E.g., see www.merriam-webster.com/medical/aminoglycoside: "any of a group of antibiotics (as streptomycin and neomycin) that inhibit bacterial protein synthesis and are active especially against gram-negative bacteria".
- ^ Mingeot-Leclercq MP, Glupczynski Y, Tulkens PM (1999). "Aminoglycosides: activity and resistance". Antimicrob. Agents Chemother. 43 (4): 727–37. doi:10.1128/AAC.43.4.727. PMC 89199. PMID 10103173.
- ^ ME Levison, MD, 2012, Aminoglycosides, The Merck Manual [1], accessed 22 February 2014.