A global view of antibiotic resistance.

Antibiotic resistance is one of the few examples of evolution that can be addressed experimentally. The present review analyses this resistance, focusing on the networks that regulate its acquisition and its effect on bacterial physiology. It is widely accepted that antibiotics and antibiotic resistance genes play fundamental ecological roles - as weapons and shields, respectively - in shaping the structures of microbial communities.

The Pseudomonas putida Crc global regulator controls the expression of genes from several chromosomal catabolic pathways for aromatic compounds.

The Crc protein is involved in the repression of several catabolic pathways for the assimilation of some sugars, nitrogenated compounds, and hydrocarbons in Pseudomonas putida and Pseudomonas aeruginosa when other preferred carbon sources are present in the culture medium (catabolic repression). Crc appears to be a component of a signal transduction pathway modulating carbon metabolism in pseudomonads, although its mode of action is unknown. To better understand the role of Crc, the proteome profile of two otherwise isogenic P.

Fitness of in vitro selected Pseudomonas aeruginosa nalB and nfxB multidrug resistant mutants.

Overproduction of multidrug resistance (MDR) efflux pumps is involved in the resistance to a wide range of compounds in bacteria. These determinants extrude antibiotics, but also bacterial metabolites like quorum-sensing signals. Non-regulated extrusion of bacterial metabolites might produce a metabolic burden, so that MDR-overproducing mutants could have a reduced fitness when compared with their parental strains.