Macrolide

Macrolides are a class of mostly natural products with a large macrocyclic lactone ring to which one or more deoxy sugars, usually cladinose and desosamine, may be attached. Macrolides belong to the polyketide class of natural products. Some macrolides have antibiotic or antifungal activity and are used as pharmaceutical drugs. Rapamycin is also a macrolide and was originally developed as an antifungal, but has since been used as an immunosuppressant drug and is being investigated as a potential longevity therapeutic.

Macrolides are a diverse group with many members of very different properties:

  • Macrolides with 14-, 15-, or 16-membered rings and two attached sugar molecules are antibiotics that bind to bacterial ribosomes, the key representative being erythromycin. The term "macrolide antibiotics" tend to refer to just this class.
  • Some macrolides with very large (20+ membered) rings are immunosuppresants, the prototypical one being rapamycin.
  • Some 23-membered macrolides are also antibiotics that bind to the 50S part of the bacterial ribosome, see streptogramin A.
  • Polyene antimycotics are also technically macrolides.
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