Puromycin is an antibiotic protein synthesis inhibitor which causes premature chain termination during translation.

Puromycin is an aminonucleoside antibiotic, derived from the Streptomyces alboniger bacterium,[1] that causes premature chain termination during translation taking place in the ribosome.

In this reaction, a puromycin molecule is chemically attached to the end of an mRNA template, which is then translated into protein.

Antibodies that recognize puromycylated nascent chains can also be used to purify newly synthesized polypeptides[3] and to visualize the distribution of actively translating ribosomes by immunofluorescence.

[4] Puromycin is a reversible inhibitor of dipeptidyl-peptidase II (serine peptidase) and cytosol alanyl aminopeptidase (metallopeptidase).

As puromycin inhibits protein synthesis in eukaryotic cells, researchers were able to show that injections of this drug will result in both short-term as well as long-term memory loss in mice.