Triclosan is an antimicrobial agent that is widely used in a variety of consumer products and acts by inhibiting one of the highly conserved enzymes (enoyl-ACP reductase, or FabI) of bacterial fatty-acid biosynthesis. But several key pathogenic bacteria do not possess FabI, and here we describe a unique triclosan-resistant flavo-protein, FabK, that can also catalyse this reaction in Streptococcus pneumoniae. Our finding has implications for the development of FabI-specific inhibitors as antibacterial agents.
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