Use of genomics to select antibacterial targets

The problem of antibiotic resistance has eroded the usefulness of our arsenal of effective antibiotics. There is a need for new strategies to discover and develop new, effective drugs. The advent of the microbial genomics era has provided a wealth of information on a variety of microorganisms. This has allowed the identification and/or validation of a number of gene products that could serve as targets for the discovery of novel antibacterial agents. New genetic techniques and approaches have arisen in an attempt to exploit this newly available genomic data. Both random and targeted gene disruption efforts have proven effective in this process. Many of these methods would have been difficult to accomplish without DNA sequence and bioinformatics analyses. Several targets have been selected to further characterize and screen for inhibitors and one has yielded two clinical candidates. (c) 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.