Abstract
The development of safe, effective antimicrobial drugs has revolutionized medicine in the past 60 years. Morbidity and mortality from microbial disease have been drastically reduced by modern chemotherapy. Unfortunately, micro-organisms are nothing if not versatile, and the brilliance of the chemotherapeutic achievement has been dimmed by the emergence of microbial strains presenting a formidable array of defences against our most valuable drugs. This should not surprise us, since the evolutionary history of living organisms is concerned with their adaptation to the environment. The adaptation of micro-organisms to the toxic hazards of antimicrobial drugs is therefore probably inevitable. The extraordinary speed with which antibiotic resistance has spread amongst bacteria during the era of chemotherapy has been due, in large measure, to the remarkable genetic flexibility of this group of organisms.
Keywords
- Human Immunodeficiency Virus
- Gene Cassette
- Gene Mobility
- Human Immunodeficiency Virus Protease
- Mosaic Gene
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Further reading
Alekshun, M. N. and Levy, S. B. (1997). Regulation of chromosomally mediated multiple antibiotic resistance: the mar regulon. Antimicrob. Agents Chemother. 41, 2067.
Courvalin, P. (1994). Transfer of antibiotic resistant genes between Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. Antimicrob. Agents Chemother. 38, 1447.
George, A. M., Hall, R. M. and Stokes, H. W (1995). Multidrug resistance in Klebsiella pneumoniae: a novel gene ram confers a multidrug resistance phenotype inEscherichia coli. Microbiol. 141, 1909.
Lanka, E. and Wilkms, B. M. (1995). DNA processing reactions in bacterial conjugation. Ann. Rev. Biochem. 64, 141.
Leigh Brown, A. J. and Richman, D. D. (1997). HIV-1: gambling on the evolution of drug resistance. Nature Medicine 3, 268.
Prescott, L. M., Harley, J. P and Klein, D. A. (1996). Microbiology, 3rd edn, William C. Brown, Dubuque IA.
Recchia, G. D. and Hall, R. M. (1995). Gene cassettes: a new class of mobile element. Microbiol. 141, 3015.
Salyers, A. A. and Amabile-Cuevas, C. F. (1997). Why are antibiotic resistance genes so resistant to elimination? Antimicrob. Agents. Chemother. 41, 2321.
Salyers, A. A. et al. (1995). Conjugative transposons: an unusual and diverse set of integrated gene transfer elements. Microbiol. Rev. 59, 579.
Tenover, F. C. and Hughes, J. M. (1996). The challenge of emerging infectious diseases: development and spread of multiply-resistant bacterial pathogens. Science 275, 300.
Tomasz, A. and Munoz, R. (1995). ß-Lactam antibiotic resistance in Gram-positive bacterial pathogens of the upper respiratory tract: a brief overview of mechanisms. Microbiol. Drug Resist. 1, 103.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1998 The Kluwer Academic Publishers
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Franklin, T.J., Snow, G.A. (1998). The genetic basis of resistance to antimicrobial drugs. In: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology of Antimicrobial Drug Action. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-9127-5_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-9127-5_8
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-0-412-82190-5
Online ISBN: 978-94-010-9127-5
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive