Microbial Recognition of Antibiotics: Ecological, Physiological, and Therapeutic Implications

Abstract

Microbes release innumerable products into their environment, including many antibiotics. This fact has captivated scientists and clinicians for more than a century, and many of the details of the early history of antibiotics are familiar even to beginning students of microbiology and pharmacology. For example, the discovery in the late 1800s that microorganisms can cause disease was made concurrently with the finding that microbes can also prevent infections. After Robert Koch demonstrated that Bacillus anthracis is the causative agent of anthrax, Louis Pasteur showed that B. anthracis infection of animals could be prevented by simultaneous inoculation with soil bacteria. Other researchers later showed that cell-free preparations of Pseudomonas aeruginosa also conferred protection against anthrax infection, and this preparation was used to treat a variety of infectious diseases (with mixed results).