The microbial postgenomic era: promises, problems and prospects

The inevitable emergence and spread of resistance to new antibiotics entering the market necessitates a new approach in drug discovery. Novel classes of antimicrobial compounds are required that are not enfeebled by widespread resistance mechanisms. The favoured approach is to gain a better understanding of the essential pathways and cellular functions and then to select new unexploited targets. This strategy has coincided with the deposition of fully assembled genomic sequences of several bacteria in the public databases. Various technologies have been reported that, when optimised, will enable the analysis of global cellular processes at the molecular level thus greatly contributing to our understanding of cellular physiology. In this article, some of the major advances in technology, which are expected in the future to be essential for the optimal use of the information contained within the genomic sequences, will be outlined.