Overview of antimicrobial resistance and mechanisms: The relative status of the past and current
N. Sharmila Devi,
R. Mythili,
Tijo Cherian,
R. Dineshkumar,
G.K. Sivaraman,
R. Jayakumar,
M. Prathaban,
M. Duraimurugan,
V. Chandrasekar,
Willie J.G.M. Peijnenburg
Affiliations
N. Sharmila Devi
School of Biosciences, Mar Athanasios College for Advanced Studies Tiruvalla, Kerala 689101, India; Corresponding authors.
R. Mythili
Department of Microbiology, VivekanandhaArts and Science College for Women, Sankagiri, Salem, Tamil Nadu 637 303, India
Tijo Cherian
School of Biosciences, Mar Athanasios College for Advanced Studies Tiruvalla, Kerala 689101, India; Corresponding authors.
R. Dineshkumar
Department of Microbiology, VivekanandhaArts and Science College for Women, Sankagiri, Salem, Tamil Nadu 637 303, India
G.K. Sivaraman
ICAR-Central Institute of Fisheries Technology, Microbiology Fermentation & Biotechnology Division, Cochin, Kerala 682 029, India
R. Jayakumar
Kalinga University, Kotni, Naya Raipur, Chhattisgarh 492 101, India
M. Prathaban
Department of Microbiology, Pondicherry University, Puducherry, UT 605014, India
M. Duraimurugan
Division of Biological sciences, Tucker Hall, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA
V. Chandrasekar
Department of Microbiology, Bioline Laboratory and Research Institute, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu 641 002, India
Willie J.G.M. Peijnenburg
Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML), Leiden University, Leiden, RA 2300, the Netherlands; National Institute of Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), Center for Safety of Substances and Products, P.O. Box 1, Bilthoven, the Netherlands; Corresponding author at: Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML), Leiden University, Leiden, RA 2300, the Netherlands.
Antibiotic development is not new to the medical community, but the emergence of antibiotic resistance has become the most serious threat to global health and food security. It results in longer hospital stays, more expensive medical treatments, and greater mortality rates around the world. The basic categories used to describe antibiotic resistance originating from both natural and genetically driven processes are natural, acquired, cross-resistance, multidrug, and pan-drug resistance. Bacterial intrinsic resistance is characterized by continued improvement of resistance mechanisms via cell wall structure and other cellular features. Resistant drug uptake, target site change, efflux pump mechanism, and target site mutation are examples of resistance mechanisms. The presence of resistant bacteria and antibiotic residues in the environment requires urgent global action to combat antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Discovering new antibiotics is not the only prerequisite for dealing with this scenario; continuous national surveillance of antibiotic resistance gene level dissemination is also necessary. This review provides the most up-to-date status of the mechanisms of AMR against several antibiotics on the market and how the resistant bacteria have evolved with diverse mechanisms for their survival. It also discusses the significant clinical consequences and the impact of resistant bacteria exposure on public health. Further, it puts together a global understanding of the prevalence of resistant genes and offers recommendations to stop the further spread with some guidelines.
