Antimicrobial Efflux

Bacterial efflux pumps are a complex and diverse set of membrane proteins responsible for transport of substrates between cellular compartments or to the outside of bacterial cells. They are important mediators of antimicrobial resistance and are critical for many bacterial pathogens to cause infection and form biofilm. This collection has been put together to mark two very special anniversaries. It is 40 years since George and Levy (1983) published the discovery of the first 'energy-dependent efflux system' conferring resistance to Tetracycline and 30 years since the first description of the pumps from the RND family (Poole et al., 1993 and Ma et al., 1993). In this time our understanding of efflux function, physiology and structure have been transformed. This special collection is guest edited by Drs Jessica Blair and Ayush Kumar and aims to highlight the diversity of efflux pump research and the most recent advances in this fascinating field.