Antibiotics : actions, origins, resistance

A comprehensive account of the structural classes of antibiotics that have impacted human infectious disease. • Provides an introduction to antibiotics and examines how antibiotics block specific proteins acting in essential bacterial processes and how the molecular structure of the small-molecule drugs enables their antibiotic activity. • Explores the development of bacterial resistance to antibiotics, including the molecular logic that microbial producers of antibiotics use for self-protection. • Addresses the molecular logic of antibiotic biosynthesis, starting with regulatory networks that control gene transcription of secondary metabolites in streptomycetes, and examines the prospects for broadening the base of bacterial targets and also where new antibiotics are likely to emerge, including both synthetic chemical efforts and natural products. This new text offers a comprehensive, up to date account of those structural classes of antibiotics that have had an impact in human infectious disease. While most of the attention is on natural products with antibiotic activity elaborated by microbes to act as chemical weapons on neighboring bacteria, synthetic chemicals with antibiotic activity are also discussed. The book opens with an introduction to antibiotics, followed by a section that examines how antibiotics block specific proteins acting in these essential bacterial processes and how the molecular structure of the small-molecule drugs enables their antibiotic activity. Section III explores the development of bacterial resistance to antibiotics, including the molecular logic that microbial producers of antibiotics use for self-protection. The fourth section addresses the molecular logic of antibiotic biosynthesis, starting with regulatory networks that control gene transcription of secondary metabolites in streptomycetes. The final section examines the prospects for broadening the base of bacterial targets and also where new antibiotics are likely to emerge, including both synthetic chemical efforts and natural products. Paperback, 335 pages, illustrations, index.