The Genomic Enzymology of Antibiotic Resistance

The need for new antibiotic therapies is acute and growing in large part because of the emergence of drug-resistant pathogens. A vast number of resistance determinants are, however, found in nonpathogenic micro-organisms. The resistance totality in the global microbiota is the antibiotic resistome and includes not only established resistance genes but also genes that have the potential to evolve into resistance elements. We term these …