Overview of Antibacterial Target Selection

Abstract

Research in microbial genomics has yielded a vast amount of DNA sequence data and a number of new or improved tools for defining the bacterial genome. These findings have dramatically increased the number of potential antibacterial targets, particularly enzymatic sites, and have greatly enhanced their characterization.Potential targets are prioritized according to necessity for survival (essentiality), spectrum, and selectivity using a combination of bioinformatic analyses and experimental results. Experimental methods such as mutagenesis and conditional expression techniques are used to assess essentiality in vitro or virulence in vivo in animal hosts.