Novel antibiotic mechanisms to inhibit bacterial cell division

01/07/2024 to 30/06/2027

Given the increasing prevalence of microbes resistant to one, several, or almost all clinically used antibiotics, antibiotics with novel mechanisms of action are urgently needed. Bacterial cell division, a vital process closely linked to the functions of the cell envelope, results in the generation of offspring, usually by binary fission of a parent cell into identical daughter cells. Successful cell division is a prerequisite for offspring viability and requires the correct execution and coordination of a variety of cellular processes in time and space, such as total biomass increase, chromosome duplication, membrane syntheses, production of cell wall with septum formation, as well as the separation of daughter cells to complete cytokinesis. Due to its complexity and highly coordinated nature, bacterial cell division has emerged as a promising new target pathway for antibiotics. In this project we want to characterize novel or underexplored antibiotic mechanisms that interfere with bacterial cell division.