Information could be the key to winning the race against antibiotic resistance. If we lose, a UK-funded analysis predicts a frightening future where drug resistant bacterial infections kill more people worldwide than cancer.
The lack of progress in creating “new drugs for bad bugs” (a term coined by the European Commission’s Innovative Medicines Initiative) is due, in part, to a lack of information — especially in one particular area known as translocation. Translocation is the action an antibiotic must take to penetrate the outer membrane of a bacterial cell in order to reach — and destroy — its target. In Escherichia coli (E. coli), for example, the OmpF channel (porin) provides a translocation pathway for small molecules, water, and ions inward and outward through the outer membrane.
So, which compounds are able to penetrate the outer membranes of bacteria, and which ones cannot?
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