Health & Medicine Week
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Antibiotic Resistance
Newly discovered inhibitors of bacterial lactamases may prevent resistance
September 1st, 2003
The most important antibiotics in general use today are the b-lactam family of products, but the medical community faces a serious problem with these antibiotics: the increasing development of drug resistance. The resistance is caused by hydrolysis of the b-lactam by a bacterial lactamase enzyme, but fortunately it can often be overcome by the use of a serine b-lactamase inhibitor in combination with the drug. This approach is successfully used already; for example clavulanic acid is used in combination with amoxycillin in Augmentin. Unfortunately, various b-lactam drugs are also inactivated by metallo-b-lactamases, which cannot be overcome by the...
Source: Health & Medicine Week (2003-09-01)
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