Source: Intensive Care Medicine  |  Posted 8 years ago

One of the most serious challenges to the treatment of hospital-acquired infections is the appearance and spread of methicillin resistant []Staphylococcus aureus[] (MRSA), which carries a mechanism that comprehensively protects the pathogen against the beta-lactam family of antibacterial drugs.

In a recently published expert review, Ian Chopra, PhD., DSc, from University of Leeds, in Leeds, United Kingdom, reviewed the evolution of antibiotic resistance in []S. aureus[] and considered approaches and discoveries that may lead to future treatments.

Methicillin was introduced to counter an increase of []S. aureus[] hospital isolates that expressed resistance to penicillin. The first MRSA strains were reported in 1961, within a year of the introduction of methicillin to clinical practice.

Strains of methicillin-sensitive []S. aureus[] have three penicillin binding proteins that engage in essential cross-link formation between neighbouring UDP-MurNAc-pentapeptide side chains in nascent peptidoglycan. MRSA express an additional PBP (PBP2