Discipline: subjects allied to medicine
Antimetabolites as a group received a boost in medicine when sulfanilamide was discovered to be bacteriostatic, and Woods in 1940 explained its action on the basis of its structural similarity to PABA. He speculated that sulfanilamide is able to compete against PABA in an enzyme reaction that must be important for the survival of the bacteria and thereby prevents bacterial growth. This explanation based on the phenomenon of metabolic antagonism was borne out by later work.
ISSN 2719-1990 (Print)
Philippine E-Journals
