Case Study — Qingyue Guo

Overview

This infographic illustrates the molecular mechanism of how β-lactam antibiotics inhibit bacterial cell wall synthesis in Staphylococcus aureus, ultimately leading to cell lysis through osmotic pressure.

This work aims to explain what antibiotics such as penicillin are, and how they attack bacterial cell wall synthesis.

Type Molecular visualization

Audience Lay audience with some science background

Tools Adobe Illustrator
Autodesk Maya
VMD, ChimeraX

Year 2025

Process

01

Research & Model Refinements

Penicillin-binding proteins (PBP) and S. aureus cell wall data were sourced from the Protein Data Bank (PDB). A specific PBP of S. aureus is selected based on UniProt documentation.

Antibiotic structures were obtained from PubChem.

Extra molecules, such as water and ions, were deleted to isolate the target structures. And missing structures (7 residues) of the PBP were added via prediction in ChimeraX, while VMD was used to adjust structural representations for clarity.