Summary and conclusions
As a result of the widespread use of antibiotics in human
medicine — as well as in animal treatment, horticulture,
beekeeping, anti-fouling paints (used in the marine and
oil industries) and laboratories carrying out genetic
manipulation — the evolutionary pressure for the emergence
of antibiotic resistance is great. Antibiotic resistance
is a natural phenomenon, and bacteria have been
evolving to resist the action of natural antibacterial products
for billions of years (BOX 1). Although the ability of
bacteria to become resistant to antibiotics has long been
appreciated, our knowledge of the remarkable diversity
of mechanisms involved has increased greatly in recent
years. Advances in genomics, systems biology and structural
biology have dissected many of the precise events