Kanamycin (marketed under the brand name Kantrex®) is an aminoglycoside antibiotic, available in both oral and intravenous forms, and used to treat a wide variety of infections.
| File:Kanamycin.png | |
| Clinical data | |
|---|---|
| Pregnancy category |
|
| Routes of administration | Oral, intravenous, intramuscular |
| ATC code | |
| Legal status | |
| Legal status |
|
| Pharmacokinetic data | |
| Bioavailability | very low after oral delivery |
| Metabolism | ? |
| Elimination half-life | 2 hours 30 minutes |
| Excretion | ? |
| Identifiers | |
| |
| CAS Number | |
| PubChem CID | |
| DrugBank | |
| CompTox Dashboard (EPA) | |
| ECHA InfoCard | 100.000.374 |
| Chemical and physical data | |
| Formula | C18H36N4O11 |
| Molar mass | 484.499 |
Pharmacology
Kanamycin works by affecting 30S ribosomal subunit and causing a frame-shift. This means that instead of a codon CAT (for example in sequence CATG), a codon ATG is read by aminoacyil tRNA (aa-tRNA). Aminoacyil tRNA is consequently carrying a different amino acid, because the anticodon on the aa-tRNA is different. The protein needed cannot be synthesised - a completly different protein has been synthesised or a protein similar to the one needed, but not folded correctly; it depends of the site and severness of the frame-shift. A bacterium is destroyed becasue it cannot produce any of its proteins correctly.
Beacuse of over usage of antibiotics in every possible (even viral) disease as a precaution many bacteria have developed a resistance against kanamycin, and, consequently, it is not being used much anymore.
Side effects
Common side effects include changes in hearing (either hearing loss or ringing in the ears), toxicity to kidneys, and allergic reactions to the drug.
External links
 | This systemic antibiotic-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |