Combating antibiotic resistance: a major challenge

Antibiotics are microbial metabolites or synthetic analogues inspired by them that in small doses inhibit the growth and survival of microorganisms without serious toxicity to the host (1). These drugs have revolutionized medicine and made our modern way of life possible. Antibiotics target and inhibit essential cellular processes, retarding growth and causing cell death. Antibiotics are essential for preventing and treating infectious diseases (2). From the time of discovery of the first antibiotic, the challenge of antibiotic resistance commenced. Antibiotics use different mechanisms against bacteria to prevent their pathogenesis and they can be classified as bactericidal or bacteriostatic. At the same time, bacteria are also using methods to overcome the effectivity of the antibiotics by using distinct types of mechanisms. This ability of microorganisms to survive and be viable under the influence of antimicrobial agents is called as antibiotic resistance (3).