title: Pseudomonas aeruginosa: all roads lead to resistance.
abstract: Pseudomonas aeruginosa is often resistant to multiple antibiotics and consequently has joined the ranks of 'superbugs' due to its enormous capacity to engender resistance. It demonstrates decreased susceptibility to most antibiotics due to low outer membrane permeability coupled to adaptive mechanisms and can readily achieve clinical resistance. Newer research, using mutant library screens, microarray technologies and mutation frequency analysis, has identified very large collections of genes (the resistome) that when mutated lead to resistance as well as new forms of adaptive resistance that can be triggered by antibiotics themselves, in in vivo growth conditions or complex adaptations such as biofilm growth or swarming motility.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Microbial Diseases and Immunity Research, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
authors.forename: Elena B M
authors.initials: EB
authors.lastname: Breidenstein
authors.forename: César
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: de la Fuente-Núñez
authors.forename: Robert E W
authors.initials: RE
authors.lastname: Hancock
mesh_terms: D018441:Biofilms; D003550:Cystic Fibrosis / Q000382:microbiology; D024901:Drug Resistance, Multiple, Bacterial; D015964:Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial; D022761:Gene Transfer, Horizontal; D005798:Genes, Bacterial; D015698:Genomic Library; D006801:Humans; D008566:Membranes / Q000187:drug effects / Q000378:metabolism; D009154:Mutation; D011552:Pseudomonas Infections / Q000382:microbiology; D011550:Pseudomonas aeruginosa / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000235:genetics / Q000472:pathogenicity; D014774:Virulence