Bacterial resistance mechanisms as therapeutic targets.

In the 50 years since antimicrobial agents were first introduced, bacteria have acquired a wide variety of mechanisms which have enabled them to resist the effects of these drugs. One way of overcoming this problem is to administer an antibiotic with an agent which counteracts the mechanism of resistance to that antibiotic; an example of such an approach which has already been successfully implemented is the combination of a beta-lactam antibiotic with a beta-lactamase inhibitor. This review describes antibiotic resistance mechanisms which might lend themselves to an inhibitor approach and the potential therapeutic applications of such a strategy.