Antibacterial drug resistance

Bacterial transcriptomic data have been used to predict antibiotic susceptibility in a species- or antibiotic-specific manner. Here, the authors show that global transcriptional disorder is a common stress response in bacteria with low fitness, and present a general approach that can predict bacterial fitness independently of species or type of stress.

Bacterial persister cells exhibit a transient non-growing state and antibiotic tolerance. Here, Peyrusson et al. provide evidence of metabolically active Staphylococcus aureus persisters within infected host cells exposed to antibiotics and analyse transcriptomic alterations associated with persistence.

In this Review, van Belkum and colleagues discuss routinely used antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) methods, explore current efforts to improve phenotypic AST systems — including new emerging technologies as well as genomic and gene-based antimicrobial resistance detection methods — and highlight the challenges and opportunities for new rapid AST systems.

In the outer membrane, trimeric porins control the cellular uptake of small molecules, including nutrients and antibacterial agents. In this Review, Pagès and colleagues discuss advances in our understanding of the roles of general porins in small-molecule translocation in Enterobacteriaceae and consider the crucial contribution of porins in antibiotic resistance.

With rising rates of antibiotic resistance, it is essential that new antibiotics are developed. In this Review, Theuretzbacher et al. take stock of the preclinical antibiotic pipeline and discuss challenges and opportunities for the discovery and development of novel antibacterial therapies.