Yung-Hua Li and Xiao-Lin Tian
Antimicrobial agents that target bacterial cell wall biosynthesis are among the most successful and effective armamentaria against bacterial infections. However, the worldwide spread of antibiotic resistance in bacteria has eroded the clinical efficiency of these drugs and the antimicrobial pipeline continues to be lean. Nevertheless, cell wall biosynthesis of bacteria remains a high interest and celebrated targets for discovery of novel antimicrobial agents. Recent advances in genomics, including genome-wide mutagenesis analysis, genome sequencing, genotyping and gene expression profiling, have made considerable progress for our understanding of bacterial cell wall synthesis, promoting the discovery of novel antimicrobial targets.