Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy

Drug resistance of Stenotrophomonas maltophilia prompts need for effective alternative treatments

Researchers from Osaka University used a combination of genetic manipulation and protein structural analysis to determine how the position of “bulky” amino acids influences the ability of efflux pump inhibitors to bind bacterial pump proteins and so reduce their resistance to antibiotics. This work has implications for our understanding of bacterial antibiotic resistance, and may be useful in the rational design of drugs that target bacteria that have evolved antibiotic resistance.