The promise of riboswitches as potential antibacterial drug targets

Abstract

Riboswitches represent promising novel RNA structures for developing compounds that artificially regulate gene expression and, thus, bacterial growth. The past years have seen increasing efforts to identify metabolite-analogues which act on riboswitches and which reveal antibacterial activity. Here, we summarize the current inventory of riboswitch-targeting compounds, their characteristics and antibacterial potential.

Keywords: Adenine; FMN; Glucosamin-6-phosphate; Guanine; Lysine; Metabolite; Riboswitch; Ribozyme; TPP.