Bactericidal antibiotics induce programmed metabolic toxicity

Authors:

Aislinn D. Rowan, Damien J. Cabral and Peter Belenky

doi: 10.15698/mic2016.04.493
Volume 3, pp. 178 to 180, published 09/03/2016.

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Affiliations:

Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, Brown University, 171 Meeting Street, Providence, RI 02912.

Keywords: 

antibiotics, reactive oxygen species (ROS), metabolism, antibiotic resistance and tolerance.

Corresponding Author(s):

Peter Belenky, Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, Brown University, 171 Meeting Street, Providence, RI 02912 peter_belenky@brown.edu

Conflict of interest statement:

The authors declare that no competing interest exists.

Please cite this article as:

Aislinn D. Rowan, Damien J. Cabral and Peter Belenky (2016). Bactericidal antibiotics induce programmed metabolic toxicity. Microbial Cell 3(4): 178-180. doi: 10.15698/mic2016.04.493

© 2016 Rowan et al. This is an open-access article released under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which allows the unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are acknowledged.

Abstract:

The misuse of antibiotics has led to the development and spread of antibiotic resistance in clinically important pathogens. These resistant infections are having a significant impact on treatment outcomes and contribute to approximately 25,000 deaths in the U.S. annually. If additional therapeutic options are not identified, the number of annual deaths is predicted to rise to 317,000 in North America and 10,000,000 worldwide by 2050. Identifying therapeutic methodologies that utilize our antibiotic arsenal more effectively is one potential way to extend the useful lifespan of our current antibiotics. Recent studies have indicated that modulating metabolic activity is one possible strategy that can impact the efficacy of antibiotic therapy. In this review, we will address recent advances in our knowledge about the impacts of bacterial metabolism on antibiotic effectiveness and the impacts of antibiotics on bacterial metabolism. We will particularly focus on two studies, Lobritz, et al. (PNAS, 112(27): 8173-8180) and Belenky et al. (Cell Reports, 13(5): 968–980) that together demonstrate that bactericidal antibiotics induce metabolic perturbations that are linked to and required for bactericidal antibiotic toxicity.