Bacterial Multidrug Efflux Pumps: Much More Than Antibiotic Resistance Determinants

Bacterial multidrug efflux pumps are antibiotic resistance determinants present in all microorganisms. With few exceptions, they are chromosomally encoded and present a conserved organization both at the genetic and at the protein levels. In addition, most, if not all, strains of a given bacterial species present the same chromosomally-encoded efflux pumps. Altogether this indicates that multidrug efflux pumps are ancient elements encoded in bacterial genomes long before the recent use of antibiotics for human and animal therapy. In this regard, it is worth mentioning that efflux pumps can extrude a wide range of substrates that include, besides antibiotics, heavy metals, organic pollutants, plant-produced…

• CD
  Comunidad de Madrid

  Award: S2010/BMD2414
• JP
  Joint Programming Initiative Water challenges for a changing world
• EC
  European Commission

  Awards: HEALTH-F3-2011-282004, 282004
• MD
  Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad

  Awards: RD12/0015, BIO2014-54507-R, REIPI RD12/0015, JPIW2013-089-C02-01
• ID
  Instituto de Salud Carlos III

  Awards: REIPI RD12/0015, RD12/0015