Modification (and protection) of targets
Protection by modification of the target can also be an
effective means of antibiotic resistance that does not
require a mutational change in the genes encoding the
target molecules (FIG. 3). In recent years, protection of tar-
gets has been found to be a clinically relevant mechanism
of resistance for several important antibiotics; for exam-
ple, the erythromycin ribosome methylase (erm) family
of genes methylate 16S rRNA and alter the drug-binding