MRSA Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about MRSA, including details on methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, hospitals, infection, antibiotic resistance, superbugs.

beta-Lactam resistance in Staphylococcus aureus: the adaptive resistance of a plastic genome.

Fuda CC, Fisher JF, Mobashery S

Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Notre Dame, Indiana, 46556-5670, USA.

Staphylococci have two mechanisms for resistance to beta-lactam antibiotics. One is the production of beta-lactamases, enzymes that hydrolytically destroy beta-lactams. The other is the expression of penicillin-binding protein 2a (PBP 2a), which is not susceptible to inhibition by beta-lactam antibiotics. Strains of S. aureus exhibiting either beta-lactamase or PBP 2a-directed resistance (or both) have established a considerable ecological niche among human pathogens. The emergence and subsequent spread of bacterial strains designated as methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA), from the 1960s to the present, has created clinical difficulties for nosocomial treatment on a global scale. The recent variants of MRSA that are resistant to glycopeptide antibiotics (such as vancomycin) have ushered in a new and disconcerting chapter in the evolution of this organism.

Published 2 December 2005 in Cell Mol Life Sci, 62(22): 2617-33.
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