Novel Approaches to Developing New Antibiotics

Antibiotics are an essential part of modern medicine. The emergence of antibiotic-resistant mutants among bacteria is seemingly inevitable, and results, within a few decades, in decreased efficacy and withdrawal of the antibiotic from widespread usage. The traditional answer to this problem has been to introduce new antibiotics that kill the resistant mutants. For the treatment of infectious diseases some antibiotics like penicillin, erythromycin, and methicillin are used but now these antibiotics become less effective because bacteria have become more resistant to such antibiotics. Natural products are metabolites from microorganisms, plants and animals. These natural products have served as sources of lead molecules, which yielded many synthetic drugs. Actinomycetes have ability to produce a variety of bioactive substances, which have found application in combating a variety of human infections. Teixobactin was discovered using a new method of culturing bacteria in soil from “a grassy field in Maine.” It is active against gram-positive bacteria this review article focuses on different sources of new antibiotics.