8-Oxoguanine

8-Oxoguanine, also known as its tautomer 8-hydroxyguanine, is a common DNA lesion that results from exposure to reactive oxygen species. In 2007, J. J. Collins and co-workers at Boston University showed that antibiotics with diverse targets kill bacterial cells by generating hydroxyl radicals. More recently, Collins’s group and G. C. Walker and colleagues at MIT reported that guanine oxidation to 8-oxoguanine is bacterial antibiotics’ main mechanism for killing cells.