Themed collection Novel Antibiotics and Antimicrobial Resistance

Natural product research is poised to regain prominence in delivering new drugs to solve the antibiotic crisis.

Antibiotics are a therapeutic class that, once deployed, select for resistant bacterial pathogens and so shorten their useful life cycles.

Proline-rich antimicrobial peptides (PrAMPs) bind within the exit tunnel of the ribosome and inhibit translation elongation. Structures of ribosome-bound PrAMPs reveal the interactions with ribosomal components and could pave the way for the development of novel peptide-based antimicrobial agents.

Human microbiota associated with each body site produce specialized molecules to kill human pathogens. Advanced bioinformatics tools will help to discover unique microbiome chemistry.

An update on last ten years of actinomycetes antibiotic discovery, including recent key molecules in clinical development and overlooked compounds discovered using novel strategies.

History points to the bacterial cell wall biosynthetic network as a very effective target for antibiotic intervention, and numerous natural product inhibitors have been discovered.

Gram-negative bacteria are a rich and underexplored source of antibiotics that are assembled via remarkably diverse biosynthetic pathways.

Polymyxins: background and future perspectives. Introducing metabolism and detoxification considerations into the design of new polymyxins to reduce nephrotoxicity.

Advances in our understanding of symbioses, enabled by newly developed “omics” and co-culturing technologies, inspire new approaches to antibiotic discovery.

Novel antimicrobial drugs are continuously needed to counteract bacterial resistance development.

Natural products targeting the bacterial Clp protease unravel key interfaces for protein–protein–interaction and long-distance conformational control.