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Microbiology

RAMP resistance

Nature volume 438, pages 170–171 (2005)Cite this article

There is an urgent need for new antimicrobial agents because antibiotic resistance has become so prevalent. But a promising class of such agents, known as RAMPs, may suffer from the same problem.

In a report published in Proceedings of the Royal Society, Perron et al.1 demonstrate experi- mentally that bacteria can readily evolve resistance to a group of proteins called ribosomally encoded antimicrobial peptides (RAMPs). RAMPS are produced by animals, plants, fungi and bacteria as part of their natural defence against microbial attack2,3,4, and are being developed as antibiotics. But because bacterial resistance to chemotherapeutic RAMPs could confer resistance to the battery of innate human RAMPs4, the worrying prospect is that widespread use of these agents may compromise our natural defence against bacteria.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. the Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 3PS, UK

    Angus Buckling

  2. ISEM, Université de Montpellier II, Montpellier, 34095, France

    Michael Brockhurst

Authors
  1. Angus Buckling
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  2. Michael Brockhurst
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Buckling, A., Brockhurst, M. RAMP resistance. Nature 438, 170–171 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/438170a

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