The inhibition of peptide bond formation by spiramycin was studied in an in vitro system derived from Escherichia coli. Peptide bonds are formed between puromycin (S) and Ac-Phe-tRNA, which is a component of complex C, i.e., of the [Ac-Phe-tRNA-70S ribosome-poly(U)] complex, according to the puromycin reaction: C+S (Ks)<==>CS (k3)==>C'+P [Synetos, D., & Coutsogeorgopoulos, C. (1987) Biochim. Biophys. Acta 923, 275-285]. It is shown that spiramycin (A) reacts with complex C and forms the spiramycin complex C*A, which is inactive toward puromycin. C*A is the tightest complex formed between complex C and any of a number of antibiotics, such as chloramphenicol, blasticidin S, lincomycin, or sparsomycin. C*A remains stable following gel chromatography on Sephadex G-200 and sucrose gradient ultracentrifugation. Detailed kinetic study suggests that C*A is formed in a variation of a two-step mechanism in which the initial encounter complex CA is kinetically insignificant and C*A is the product of a conformational change of complex CA according to the equation, C+A (kassoc)<==>(kdissoc) C*A. The rate constants of this reaction (spiramycin reaction) are kassoc = 3.0 x 10(4) M-1 s-1 and kdissoc = 5.0 x 10(-5) s-1. Such values allow the classification of spiramycin as a slow-binding, slowly reversible inhibitor; they also lead to the calculation of an apparent overall dissociation constant equal to 1.8 nM for the C*A complex. Furthermore, they render spiramycin a useful tool in the study of antibiotic action on protein synthesis in vitro. Thus, the spiramycin reaction, in conjunction with the puromycin reaction, is applied (i) to detect a strong preincubation effect exerted by chloramphenicol and lincomycin (this effect constitutes further evidence that these two antibiotics combine with complex C as slow-binding inhibitors) and (ii) to determine the rate constant for the regeneration (k7 = 2.0 x 10(-3) s-1) of complex C from the sparsomycin complex C*I [Theocharis, D. A., & Coutsogeorgopoulos, C. (1992) Biochemistry 31, 5861-5868] according to the equation, C+I (Ki)<==>CI (k6)<==>(k7) C*I. The determination of k7 enables us to calculate the apparent association rate constant of sparsomycin, (k7/Ki') = 1.0 x 10(5) M-1 s-1, where Ki' = Ki(k7/k6 + k7). It is also shown that Ac-Phe-tRNA bound to the sparsomycin complex C*I is protected against attack by hydroxylamine.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)