Targeting of Regulators as a Promising Approach in the Search for Novel Antimicrobial Agents

• Published in: Microorganisms (Basel) Vol. 10; no. 1; p. 185
• Main Authors: Roncarati, Davide, Scarlato, Vincenzo, Vannini, Andrea
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 15-01-2022; MDPI
• Subjects: antibiotic resistance; Antibiotics; Antiinfectives and antibacterials; Antimicrobial agents; Bacteria; Bacterial diseases; Bacterial infections; bacterial pathogens; Biological activity; Gene expression; Infectious diseases; Kinases; Metabolism; new antibacterial targets; Pathogens; Penicillin; Post-transcription; Prokaryotes; Proteins; RNA polymerase; Sensors; Virulence; virulence factors regulation; new antibacterial targets; bacterial pathogens; antibiotic resistance; virulence factors regulation; gene expression
• ISSN: 2076-2607; 2076-2607
• DOI: 10.3390/microorganisms10010185

Since the discovery of penicillin in the first half of the last century, antibiotics have become the pillars of modern medicine for fighting bacterial infections. However, pathogens resistant to antibiotic treatment have increased in recent decades, and efforts to discover new antibiotics have decreased. As a result, it is becoming increasingly difficult to treat bacterial infections successfully, and we look forward to more significant efforts from both governments and the scientific community to research new antibacterial drugs. This perspective article highlights the high potential of bacterial transcriptional and posttranscriptional regulators as targets for developing new drugs. We highlight some recent advances in the search for new compounds that inhibit their biological activity and, as such, appear very promising for treating bacterial infections.