Macrolides, a family of natural antibiotics

  • Erythromycin
  • Clarithromycin
  • Azithromycin
  • others

Macrolides are natural products of secondary metabolism of several species of actynomyces;

they represent a group of compounds with a lactonic ring of variable dimensions (12-22 atoms of C)

that can bind, by means of [sugar]

  • glycosidic bonds,
  • sacharridic
  • amino-sacharridic structures.

Marcrolides are part of the larger group

  • Macrolides, lincosamides, Streptomycins (MLS)
  • Most of the MLS antibiotics are bacteriostatic.

Stopping germs

  • static, stops new growth, inhibits
  • cidal, destroys existing life, kills