Antibiotic drug–target interactions, and their respective direct effects, are generally well characterized. By contrast, the bacterial responses to antibiotic drug treatments that contribute to cell death are not as well understood and have proven to be complex as they involve many genetic and biochemical pathways. This review discusses the multilayered effects of drug–target interactions, including the essential cellular processes that are inhibited by bactericidal antibiotics and the associated cellular response mechanisms that contribute to killing. It also discusses new insights into these mechanisms that have been revealed through the study of biological networks, and describe how these insights, together with related developments in synthetic biology, could be exploited to create new antibacterial therapies.
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