A general reaction mechanism for carbapenem hydrolysis by mononuclear and binuclear metallo-β-lactamases

Abstract

Carbapenem-resistant bacteria pose a major health threat by expressing metallo-β-lactamases (MβLs), enzymes able to hydrolyse these life-saving drugs. Here the authors use biophysical and computational methods and show that different MβLs share the same reaction mechanism, suggesting new strategies for drug design.