[Studies on the mechanism of translocation in ribosomes. V. Comparison of the effect of antibiotic inhibitors of ribosomes on "enzymatic" and "non-enzymatic" translation].

A comparison of the effect of 11 antibiotic inhibitors of protein synthesis on "enzymatic" and para-chloromercuribenzoateactivated "non-enzymatic" translation was made. It was found that fusidic acid which inhibits protein synthesis by blocking the action of one of the elongation factors (EF-G) did not suppress functioning of the "non-enzymatic" system. On the contrary, all the antibiotics blocking different functional sites of the ribosome itself such as tetracycline, chloramphenicol, erythromycin, edeine, thiostreptone, viridogrisein, spectinomycin, streptomycin, kanamycin and neomycin, were shown to inhibit the "non-enzymatic" translation. The data obtained corroborate the idea that the molecular mechanism which the ribosome utilized during "non-enzymatic" translation are similar or identical to the mechanism of normal "enzymatic" translation. It was found that the "non-enzymatic" working ribosome is more sensitive to all the antibiotics as compared to the ribosome synthesizing peptide with the participation of elongation factors (EF-T and EF-G). This suggests that the elongation factors increase the level of general resistance of the working ribosome against very different hindrances.