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lostinretrosynthesis:

We’re studying tetracycline antibiotics in Microbiology class. Because in Pharmacy school, ANY subject is an excuse to study even more organic chemistry. There’s no such thing as too much o-chem! And since we’re pharmacy students and not biology students, our Micro classes don’t focus as much on the etiology or evolutionary traits of bacteria and viruses; but rather they tend to focus on a) their structural characteristics and life cycle and b) how to use this knowledge to design drugs to get rid of them.

Is there a naturally occurring compound in bacteria that these mimic? Because these structures don’t look like coincidences, for some reason. (Also lol I am ridiculously bad at antibiotic pharmacology. Very good with neuro/psycho-pharmacology, pretty decent grasp of chemotherapy (oncopharmacology?), no grasp whatsoever of this stuff. :P)