Question

Your cousin, who is NOT a scientist, reads in a blog that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved an antimicrobial called tigecycline. The blog says that the drug is an analog of tetracycline. She asks you what that means and how the drug works. What should you tell your cousin

Answer 1

Answer: I will tell her that tigecycline been an analogue of tetracycline means it has a similar structure as tetracycline but with different efficacy and mode of operation. Also, it is usually used to find new drugs with similar pharmacology as the parent drug

Explanation: Analogue drugs can differ in one or more atoms, functional groups, or substructures, which are replaced with other atoms, groups, or substructures. They have very different physical, chemical, biochemical, or pharmacological properties.

Analogue drugs are usually developed in other to improve the original drug molecule.

So in this case of tetracycline, tigecycline is produced in other to improve the antimicrobial activities of tetracycline.

Answer 2

Answer:

I would explain to my cousin, that a tetracycline analog tigecycline would work or react like tetracycline, but with a slightly different action.

Explanation:

Analog of a drug is a term that describes the drugs which has a substantial chemical structure similar to that of another drug (mostly the controlled version that is recognized by federal and state drug schedule), but with little different composition or formula.

They are purposely created to imitate the organic substances in living organism, such that, it blocks certain chemical reactions or DNA synthesis.

Also, since tetracycline is often used purposely to prevent tRNA molecules carrying amino acids from binding to ribosomes at the bacterium's 30S site, disrupting protein synthesis of the microbe. Thus, it is expected that tigecycline will also work similarly in the same way as tetracycline, however, because of a slight chemical composition structure, tigecycline will appear foreign or new to tetracycline resistant organism in the host, which will make it not to fight back or resist the drug.

Hence, this is why it was produced and approved by the FDA