[Analysis of biospecific complexes by electrophoresis: antibiotics specific to bacterial ribosomes]

Electrophoresis is a widespread method in biochemistry. Apparently it has never been used in the study of interactions found in enzyme-substrates or drug-receptor complexes. The aim of this Note is to describe some possibilities given by this simple technique especially in the case of interactions found between some antibiotics and the bacterial ribosome. Chloramphenicol, pristinamycin are located in 50 S subunit whereas dihydrostreptomycin is found in 30 S particle (fig). Such results have been previously obtained by other methods. The distribution of the gentamicin and kanamycin components is quite different. This suggests that the mechanism of action of these molecules may be different from that of streptomycin group antibiotics.