Inhibiting Pneumocystis Carinii Growth--A New Therapy

Pneumocystis carinii is a pulmonary opportunistic pathogen and a causative agent of pneumonia inimmunocompromised individuals. It causes the most common opportunistic infection, and is a major cauAIDS patients. Since there is a high incidence of adverse reactions among AIDS patients to existingtreatments, the worldwide economic and medical burdens caused by P. carinii are severe. The existencrefractive or resistant to current antibiotics highlights the necessity of developing innovative tecpathogen. Novel antibiotics capable of arresting the growth of microbial pathogens are being developselectively inhibit the function of aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases, essential enzymes involved in proteiaminoacyl-tRNA synthetases have diverged between species, it is possible to rationally design drugsenzymes from similar pathogens, but which are not toxic to humans. It is proposed that genes from P.aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases will be characterized, and candidate drugs will be assayed to determine imicrobial activities related to their interfering with the activity of the encoded synthetases. Testand yeast, which are deleted for their endogenous synthetase, will be developed for an in vivo assaydrugs have on the cloned P. carinii and human synthetases.