Aminoglycoside-induced mistranslation in thermophilic archaebacteria.

The effect of selected aminoglycoside antibiotics on the translational accuracy of poly(U) programmed ribosomes derived from the thermophilic archaebacteria Thermoplasma acidophilum, Sulfolobus solfataricus, Thermococcus celer and Desulfurococcus mobilis has been determined. Under optimum temperature and ionic conditions for polyphenylalanine synthesis, the four species investigated are found to be markedly diverse in their response to the miscoding-inducing action of aminoglycoside antibiotics. T. acidophilum is sensitive to all of the compounds tested except streptomycin; S. solfataricus responds to paromomycin and to hygromycin B; T. celer is only affected by neomycin, and D. mobilis is refractory to all drugs. The only feature shared by the four species under study, and by all archaebacteria so far investigated, is their complete insensitivity to streptomycin. The structural and phylogenetic implications of the remarkable diversity encountered among archaebacterial ribosomes in their susceptibility to aminoglycosides are discussed.