Chiral peptidoglycan mimics target bacterial wall biosynthesis for pathogen intervention

chiral-peptidoglycan-mimics-target-bacterial-wall-biosynthesis-for-pathogen-intervention
Chiral peptidoglycan mimics target bacterial wall biosynthesis for pathogen intervention

Data availability

All data supporting the findings of this study are available within the Article and its Supplementary Information. Source data are provided for Figs. 1–6, and for Supplementary Figs. 4, 5, 713, 16, 1821, 2329, 31, 3339, 4143, 45, 47, 49, and 5161 in the associated Source Data file. Protein structures were retrieved from the AlphaFold Protein Structure Database: Ddl (P96612, https://alphafold.ebi.ac.uk/entry/P96612) and MurF (P96613, https://alphafold.ebi.ac.uk/entry/P96613). Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC, 22277023 (X.X.), 91956105 (X.X.), 22077028 (X.X.), and 32000995 (Y.L.)), Key Research and Development Program of Hunan Province of China (2023SK2033 (Y.L.) and 2022SK2057 (X.X.)), Young Talents of Hunan Province (2021RC3047, X.X.), Excellent Young Scientists Fund of Hunan Province (2021JJ20023, X.X.), Xiangjiang Public Welfare Foundation of Hunan Province (SKY24078, Y.L.), Hunan Science and Technology Innovation Plan (2025ZYJ003 (X.X.)), and Flexibly Recruited High-End Talent of Yunnan Province (X.X.). The authors thank the Analytical Instrumentation Center of Hunan University for assistance with data acquisition and analysis.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Peptide Biomedicine Laboratory (PBL), College of Biology, Hunan University, Changsha, Hunan, China

    Kefurong Deng, Dongzhe Zou, Zenan Zeng, Beiling Guo, Wensheng Gong, Yini Xu, Yachao Li & Xianghui Xu

  2. State Key Laboratory of Chemo and Biosensing, Hunan Research Center of the Basic Discipline for Cell Signaling, Hunan Provincial Key Laboratory of Medical Virology, Key Laboratory for Bio-Nanotechnology and Molecular Engineering of Hunan Province, Hunan University, Changsha, Hunan, China

    Kefurong Deng, Yachao Li & Xianghui Xu

Authors

  1. Kefurong Deng
  2. Dongzhe Zou
  3. Zenan Zeng
  4. Beiling Guo
  5. Wensheng Gong
  6. Yini Xu
  7. Yachao Li
  8. Xianghui Xu

Contributions

X.X. and K.D. conceived and designed the study. K.D., D.Z., and Y. L. synthesized the chiral peptidoglycan mimics. K.D., D.Z., and Z.Z. investigated bacterial recognition and the incorporation mechanisms of peptidoglycan mimics into bacterial biosynthesis. K.D., W.G., and D.Z. conducted molecular dynamics simulations. K.D., D.Z., Z.Z., B.G., and Y.X. contributed to the in vivo animal studies. X.X. and K.D. wrote and revised the manuscript. K.D., D.Z., Z.Z., B.G., Y. L., and X.X. provided critical feedback on the manuscript. X.X. supervised the project.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Xianghui Xu.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Nature Communications thanks Dicky Pranantyo, Wei Chen, and the other anonymous reviewer for their contribution to the peer review of this work. A peer review file is available.

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Deng, K., Zou, D., Zeng, Z. et al. Chiral peptidoglycan mimics target bacterial wall biosynthesis for pathogen intervention. Nat Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-69967-z

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