When Humans Met Superbugs: Strategies to Tackle Bacterial Resistances to Antibiotics

Bacterial resistance to antibiotics poses enormous health and economic burdens to our society, and it is of the essence to explore old and new ways to deal with these problems. Here we review the current status of multi-resistance genes and how they spread among bacteria. We discuss strategies to de...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Bravo Alicia, Ruiz-Cruz Sofia, Alkorta Itziar, Espinosa Manuel
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: De Gruyter 2018-12-01
Series:Biomolecular Concepts
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1515/bmc-2018-0021
Description
Summary:Bacterial resistance to antibiotics poses enormous health and economic burdens to our society, and it is of the essence to explore old and new ways to deal with these problems. Here we review the current status of multi-resistance genes and how they spread among bacteria. We discuss strategies to deal with resistant bacteria, namely the search for new targets and the use of inhibitors of protein-protein interactions, fragment-based methods, or modified antisense RNAs. Finally, we discuss integrated approaches that consider bacterial populations and their niches, as well as the role of global regulators that activate and/or repress the expression of multiple genes in fluctuating environments and, therefore, enable resistant bacteria to colonize new niches. Understanding how the global regulatory circuits work is, probably, the best way to tackle bacterial resistance.
ISSN:1868-5021
1868-503X