Investigations on the antiproliferative effects of amino acid antagonists targeting for aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases. Part I--The antibacterial effect.

Amino acid antagonists with proven or potentially inhibitory activities on aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases were tested for their antiproliferative effect against E. coli B. The compounds 4- and 6-fluoro-tryptophan, 5-methyltryptophan, selenocystine and beta-(2-thienyl)alanine gave strong growth inhibition in minimal medium, which disappeared after addition of structurally related natural amino acids or in an enriched broth. The inhibitory effect on amino-acyl-tRNA synthetases and the minimal inhibitory concentration for growth inhibition in minimal medium could not be correlated.