Antibiotic Resistance Caused by Class A β-Lactamases

Abstract

The most effective and most used antibiotics for treating infections are known as beta-lactams. Unfortunately, more and more bacteria are developing different ways to fight against these antibiotics. The most common causes of resistance involve the creation of β-lactamase, which allows hydrolysis of the β-lactam ring, which results in the inactivation of the drug. A way around this is using β-lactamase inhibitors like clavulanic acid, sulbactam and tazobactam in combination with β-lactams for treatment. But, there is still bacterial resistance that occurs with combination therapy and it keeps evolving, which results in people developing immunity to these medications. As a result, scientists are looking to find broad-spectrum β-lactamase inhibitors that successfully fight β-lactamases. (Eiamphungporn et al., 2018)