Staphylococcus aureus antimicrobial efflux pumps and their inhibitors: recent developments

The microorganism Staphylococcus aureus is a notorious causative agent of bacterial infection. The widespread presence of this pathogen has caused significant morbidity and mortality rates in clinical healthcare settings and communities. Due to its increasingly frequent recalcitrant nature towards clinically available antimicrobial agents, the bacterium poses a considerable public health crisis. A significant bacterial mechanism of antimicrobial agent resistance includes multidrug efflux pump systems. These antimicrobial efflux determinants translate into several large superfamilies of transporters that share related amino acid sequences, similarities in three-dimensional structures, modes of energization, and solute transport catalysis across the membrane. Because of their ubiquitous nature and functional role in virulence, these multidrug transporters make good targets for inhibition. This review briefly summarizes recent key findings regarding multidrug efflux activity and modulation in the MATE, SMR, and MFS transporters.