Background:

G-418 is an elongation inhibitor of 80 S ribosomes [1].

G418 is an aminoglycoside antibiotic, it has a wide spectrum of activity and is active against bacteria, yeasts, fungi, algae, plant and even animal cells. G418 is usually used as a cloning selection in pro- and eukaryotes at concentrations from 1 to 300 ?g/ml. In the studies of antibiotic resistance in clinical isolates of bactenia, it is found that all strains carrying 3'-O-aminoglycoside phosphotransferases are resistant to G418. Among these phosphotransferases, type I and type II are encoded by the transposable elements TnS and Tn601, respectively [2].

Apart from the selector function, G418 is also found to have antiviral activity against bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV). G418 prevents the cytopathic effect (CPE) resulting from DENV-2 infection of BHK cells, in a dose-dependent manner with an EC50 value of 3±0.4 ?g/ml [3].

参考文献:
[1] Bar-Nun S, Shneyour Y, Beckmann JS. G-418, an elongation inhibitor of 80 S ribosomes. Biochim Biophys Acta. 1983, 741 (1): 123-7.
[2] Julian Davies and Antonio Jimenez. A new selective agent for eukaryotic cloning vectors. Am. J. Trop. Med. Hyg. 1980, 29 (5): 1089-1092.
[3] Xianchao G. Zhang, Peter W. Mason, Edward J. Dubovi, Xiaodong Xu, Nigel Bourne, Randall W. Renshaw, Timothy M. Block, and Alexander V. Birk. Antiviral activity of Geneticin against DENGUE virus. Antiviral Res. 2009 July, 83(1): 21–27.