An Overview on Antibiotic Resistance in Gram-Negative Bacteria

Abstract

Antimicrobial agents have been in use since ages in various forms in curing bacterial infections. Gram-negative bacteria cause a wide range of infections in human as well as in animals. The continuous use of antibacterial agents in treating humans and animals may generate resistance towards antibiotics. Antibiotic resistance in bacteria occurs due to various mechanisms adopted by bacteria to make them safe from therapeutic activity of antibiotics. With the beginning of historical perspective of antibiotics, this chapter will describe structure and nomenclature of beta-lactams and the phenomenon how beta-lactams work on bacterial cell to diminish their activity. The four most common mechanisms adopted by bacteria for evading lethal effect of antibiotics, viz. modification of target site of antibiotics, modification of penicillin binding proteins, permeability-based resistance, and efflux pump, are also described briefly. This chapter will describe various mechanisms of bacteria which are responsible for dissemination of antibiotic resistance among bacterial population.KeywordsResistance mechanismsβ-Lactams nomenclatureβ-LactamasePBPsEfflux pump