An overview of the elaborate systems that Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria have devised in resistance to b-lactam antibiotics will be presented. Acquisition of the bla system in Gram-positive bacterium Staphylococcus aureus ushered emergence of methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) in 1961, which remains a clinical scourge to the present day. A different system has evolved in Gram-negative bacteria, which links the damage to the cell wall to induction of antibiotic resistance. The knowledge of the details for both these systems has been emerging only recently, revealing an elaborate complexity to these systems that result in inducible antibiotic-resistance mechanisms.

b-Lactam antibiotic-resistance machineries in gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria

243rd National Meeting (2012)

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