Trimethoprim Chemical Properties
 


Trimethoprim Chemical Properties
White crystalline powder, odorless, bitter taste. Melting point: 199-203 °C. It is insoluble in water, ether, benzene, and slightly soluble in chloroform, methanol, highly soluble in acetic acid.


Trimethoprim Uses
1. It can be used as a synergistic antimicrobial drugs; it can also be used for treating bacterial infections and coccidiosis in poultry.
2. It is a novel orally administrated broad-spectrum antibiotics. It has a similar antibacterial spectrum with sulfa drugs but with a stronger potency. It is effective in treating a variety of Gram positive and negative bacteria. Since the bacteria is easy to evolve drug resistance to this product, it is not suitable to be used alone as an antimicrobial drug. The combination between trimethoprim and sulfa drugs can enhance the antibacterial activity by several times to several dozens of times. The product is mainly used for being as the synergistic drugs for sulfonamide drugs with a general ratio of 1: 5 for usage. It can also be used as a veterinary drug for treatment of avian sepsis caused by Escherichia coli, salmonellosis, fowl typhoid, cholera, and respiratory system secondary bacterial infections. It can also be used for the treatment of coccidiosis.
3. Application: used as antibacterial synergistic drugs; treat respiratory tract infections, urinary tract infections and intestinal infections when being used alone.



Trimethoprim Description
Trimethoprim selectivity between bacterial and mammalian dihydrofolate reductases results from the subtle but significant architectural differences between these enzyme systems. Whereas the bacterial enzyme and the mammalian enzyme both efficiently catalyze the conversion of dihydrofolic acid to tetrahydrofolic acid, the bacterial enzyme is sensitive to inhibition by trimethoprim by up to 40,000-fold lower concentrations than the mouse enzyme is. This difference explains the useful selective toxicity of trimethoprim.