The Emergence and Preventability of Globally Spreading Antibiotic Resistance: A Literature Review

Abstract

Antibiotics have been used in clinical treatment since the mid-20th century. With the use of antibiotics, infant mortality has decreased and average life has increased by about 20 years. However, since the early years of antibiotic use, bacteria have begun to change to reduce or eliminate the effectiveness of antibiotics. Antibiotic resistance is spreading rapidly, but the mechanisms of resistance acquisition, how resistance arises, and how it can be prevented are not clearly understood. The purpose of this review is to compile information on studies of antibiotic resistance and the prevention of resistance acquisition. Spontaneous mutations are an important cause of resistance acquisition in the presence of antibiotics. One of the most commonly used methods to study how these mutations arise is adaptive resistance experiments. Using the information obtained from these experiments, it has been determined that the SOS response plays an important role in the acquisition of resistance mutations. Therefore, the SOS response could be an important target for inhibiting the acquisition of antibiotic resistance.