Coping with antibiotic resistance: contributions from genomics.
Antibiotic resistance is a public health issue of global dimensions with a significant impact on morbidity, mortality and healthcare-associated costs. The problem has recently been worsened by the steady increase in multiresistant strains and by the restriction of antibiotic discovery and development programs. Recent advances in the field of bacterial genomics will further current knowledge on antibiotic resistance and help to tackle the problem. Bacterial genomics and transcriptomics can inform our understanding of resistance mechanisms, and comparative genomic analysis can provide relevant information on the evolution of resistant strains and on resistance genes and cognate genetic elements. Moreover, bacterial genomics, including functional and structural genomics, is also proving to be instrumental in the identification of new targets, which is a crucial step in new antibiotic discovery programs.
Department of Molecular Biology, Section of Microbiology, University of Siena, and Clinical Microbiology Unit, Siena University Hospital, Policlinico Santa Maria alle Scotte, Viale Bracci, 53100 Siena, Italy. rossolini@unisi.it.
Gian Maria
GM
Rossolini
Maria Cristina
MC
Thaller