Aminoglycoside antibiotics

Aminoglycoside is a medicinal and bacteriologic category of traditional Gram-negative antibacterial therapeutic agents that inhibit protein synthesis and contain as a portion of the molecule an amino-modified glycoside (sugar); the term can also refer more generally to any organic molecule that contains aminosugar substructures. Aminoglycoside antibiotics display bactericidal activity against Gram-negative aerobes and some anaerobic bacilli where resistance has not yet arisen but generally not against Gram-positive and anaerobic Gram-negative bacteria.

Aminoglycoside antibiotics include the first-in-class aminoglycoside antibiotic streptomycin (images at right) derived from Streptomyces griseus, the earliest modern agent used against tuberculosis, and an example that lacks the common 2-deoxystreptamine moiety (image right, below) present in many other class members. Other examples include the deoxystreptamine-containing agents kanamycin, tobramycin, gentamicin, and neomycin (see below).

Aminoglycosides that are derived from bacteria of the Streptomyces genus are named with the suffix -mycin, whereas those that are derived from Micromonospora are named with the suffix -micin. However, this nomenclature system is not specific for aminoglycosides, and so appearance of this set of suffixes does not imply common mechanism of action. (For instance, vancomycin, a glycopeptide antibiotic, and erythromycin, a macrolide antibiotic produced by Saccharopolyspora erythraea, along with its synthetic derivatives clarithromycin and azithromycin, all share the suffixes but have notably different mechanisms of action.)

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