Chapter 2
Antibacterial Combinations
“There is strength in numbers, but organizing those numbers is
one of the great challenges.”
—John C. Mather, US Physics Nobel Laureate.
Abstract There has been much activity in the area of multiple drug combinations
in treating various diseases including bacterially mediated ones. Work in the field is
continuing and in this chapter design principles for combinations of separate drugs
aimed at more than two types of antibacterial activity or associated activity which
contributes to increased potency or overcoming antimicrobial resistance strategies
are covered. This chapter concisely reviews previous work over the past decade or so
and details current work on combinations of drugs with multiple activities through
specific interactions with one or more biological target molecules.
2.1 Introduction
Combinations with multiple actions offer a range of advantages particularly when
potential difficulties with differing target sites and pharmacokinetic profiles can be
overcome. As Lewis has pointed out in his perspectives article on the scientific basis
for antibiotic discovery (Lewis 2020), a vital advantage of combinations centres
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021
J. Bremner, Multiple Action-Based Design Approaches to Antibacterials,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-0999-2_2
21
Antibacterial Combinations
“There is strength in numbers, but organizing those numbers is
one of the great challenges.”
—John C. Mather, US Physics Nobel Laureate.
Abstract There has been much activity in the area of multiple drug combinations
in treating various diseases including bacterially mediated ones. Work in the field is
continuing and in this chapter design principles for combinations of separate drugs
aimed at more than two types of antibacterial activity or associated activity which
contributes to increased potency or overcoming antimicrobial resistance strategies
are covered. This chapter concisely reviews previous work over the past decade or so
and details current work on combinations of drugs with multiple activities through
specific interactions with one or more biological target molecules.
2.1 Introduction
Combinations with multiple actions offer a range of advantages particularly when
potential difficulties with differing target sites and pharmacokinetic profiles can be
overcome. As Lewis has pointed out in his perspectives article on the scientific basis
for antibiotic discovery (Lewis 2020), a vital advantage of combinations centres
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021
J. Bremner, Multiple Action-Based Design Approaches to Antibacterials,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-0999-2_2
21