New antibiotics from bacterial natural products.
For the past five decades, the need for new antibiotics has been met largely by semisynthetic tailoring of natural product scaffolds discovered in the middle of the 20(th) century. More recently, however, advances in technology have sparked a resurgence in the discovery of natural product antibiotics from bacterial sources. In particular, efforts have refocused on finding new antibiotics from old sources (for example, streptomycetes) and new sources (for example, other actinomycetes, cyanobacteria and uncultured bacteria). This has resulted in several newly discovered antibiotics with unique scaffolds and/or novel mechanisms of action, with the potential to form a basis for new antibiotic classes addressing bacterial targets that are currently underexploited.
Clardy
Jon
J
Department of Biological Chemistry & Molecular Pharmacology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA.
Fischbach
Michael A
MA
Walsh
Christopher T
CT
D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D000458:Cyanobacteria / Q000378:metabolism; D004269:DNA, Bacterial; D015195:Drug Design; D004353:Drug Evaluation, Preclinical; D005818:Genetic Engineering; D023281:Genomics; D010598:Pharmacognosy / Q000379:methods*; D013306:Streptomycetaceae / Q000378:metabolism
D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents; D004269:DNA, Bacterial