Overview

“Antibiotics and their mechanisms of action” provides a deep and lucid understanding of the mechanisms of action of various antibiotics. The experiments followed to decipher the mechanisms have been explained in great depth, which is a novelty in this textbook. Most undergraduate textbooks on antibiotics place emphasis on their use from the clinician’s perspective. Taking penicillin as an example, typical textbooks discuss its discovery, penicillin’s β-lactam derivatives, routes of administration, the diseases and pathogens treated with β-lactam antibiotics, side effects, and finally the mechanisms of resistance that have evolved against penicillin. No description of how its mechanism of action was deciphered is ever provided. This textbook describes how simple experiments using protoplasts, covalent affinity chromatography, SYPRO Orange binding assays, and X-ray crystallography have all been used to elucidate the mechanism of action of penicillin. Like this, the complicated mechanisms of action of different antibiotics have been presented in simple terms with the help of original illustrations. Chapters 8-10 cover the mechanisms of action of anti-ribosomal antibiotics (tetracycline, streptomycin, chloramphenicol). Elucidating the mechanisms of action for these antibiotics requires complex experiments such as ex vivo transcription via a cell-free ribosomal reaction mixture, photolabelling experiments, and sucrose density gradient centrifugation of radiolabelled translation reactants and products. These experiments are conveyed to the reader in the simplest possible language and with easily understandable, appealing illustrations. Finally, the reader is challenged at the end of every chapter with original questions, testing whether hecan apply the concepts he learned in the preceding chapter to research-level problems. This book is written primarily for undergraduate students in microbiology or biotechnology courses to help them develop a simplistic yet comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms underlying antibiotics action. It is believed that this book will prepare the students for PhD level research.

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Dr. Deepesh Nagarajan is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Biotechnology, M.S. Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences (Bangalore). He also serves as a Visiting Professor at St. Xavier’s College (Mumbai). He completed his PhD in the Department of Biochemistry, Indian Institute of Science, under Prof. Nagasuma Chandra, and completed a Postdoctoral fellowship at the Institute of Protein Design, University of Washington, under Prof. David Baker. His research interests are macromolecular engineering and design, specifically proteins, peptides, and DNA. He has had a decade of experience designing and elucidating the mechanisms of antimicrobial peptides effective against drug-resistant pathogens. He has served as Editor for The Journal of Biosciences. He has published 20 research articles in peer-reviewed journals including Science Advances, Science, Journal of Biochemistry, and Nucleic Acids Research.

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