Credit: Wencewicz
A natural product known as tabtoxin produced by a plant pathogen acts as a Trojan Horse pro-drug, or drug precursor. The molecule enters the bacterium, which cleaves it in half in order to access the amino acid threonine (in blue) that it can use to build proteins. This liberates the antibiotic portion of the pro-drug, called tabtoxinine-beta-lactam, which kills the bacterium. The beta-lactam, in red, is the “enchanted ring” found in penicillin and other antibiotics but here it acts against a new target. To see this animation, click on the image and view it full size.