Antibiotics: therapeutic importance and perspectives for the discovery and development of new agents

摘要

There is a continuous need for antibiotics, mainly with new mechanisms of action, since infectious diseases represent the second major cause of death in the world and bacteria resistance levels are high. This review describes the contribution of microbial natural products for the development of the major antibiotic classes, the mechanisms of action of current antibiotics, some modern approaches involving genetic tools for the discovery and development of new antibiotics from microbial products and antibiotics in clinical trials.