Antimicrobial Peptide Exposure Selects for Resistant and Fit Stenotrophomonas maltophilia Mutants That Show Cross-Resistance to Antibiotics.

ABSTRACT: Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are essential components of the innate immune system and have been proposed as promising therapeutic agents against drug-resistant microbes. AMPs possess a rapid bactericidal mode of action and can interact with different targets, but bacteria can also avoid their effect through a variety of resistance mechanisms. Apart from hampering treatment by the AMP itself, or that by other antibiotics in the case of cross-resistance, AMP resistance might also confer cross-resistance to innate human peptides and impair the anti-infective capability of the human host. A better understanding of how resistance to AMPs is acquired and the genetic mechanisms involved is needed before using these compounds as therapeutic agents. Using experimental evolution and whole-genome se

SUBMITTER: Blanco P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7529437 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature