Bacterial antibiotic resistance represents a major global public health threat. Its most common causes include spontaneous genetic mutations, the widespread and often inappropriate use of antibiotics in human medicine, and their extensive application in livestock production. Resistance manifests as a reduced susceptibility or complete insensitivity of bacteria to antibacterial agents, ultimately leading to treatment failure. In this master’s thesis we focused on antibiotics with innovative mechanism of action that were either in phase II or III clinical development or had been approved between 2020 and 2025. The aim of the thesis was to provide a critical review of clinical studies for four selected drugs (zoliflodacin, gepotidacin, lefamulin and rifasutenizol). We evaluated their safety, efficacy and potential for drug-drug interactions and compared their physicochemical properties with those of already established antibiotics. The literature search was conducted in freely accessible databases, with MEDLINE serving as the main source of literature. Data on the affinity of the selected drugs for cytochrome P450 enzymes were obtained from ChEMBL. Their effects on safety-related targets were assessed by evaluating their affinity for potassium channels and their activity in the HepG2 cell line, as indicators of the risk of QT prolongation and hepatotoxicity, respectively. Based on the review of clinical studies, we confirmed the non-inferiority of the new antibacterial agents compared with established therapies. The analysis of toxicological parameters indicated a low risk of hepatotoxicity for zoliflodacin and gepotidacin. Gepotidacin, together with lefamulin, also showed a limited effect on potassium channels, suggesting a low to moderate risk for QT prolongation. Among the evaluated drugs, lefamulin was identified as the strongest CYP3A4 inhibitor, which suggests that caution is needed when it is co-administered with other drugs metabolized through this pathway. The aim of this master’s thesis was to systematically compile data on the clinical efficacy and in silico assessments of interactions of antibiotics with a novel mechanism of action.
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