Fernando Baquero, Rafael Cantón, Ana Elena Pérez-Cobas, Teresa M Coque, Bruce R Levin, Jeronimo Rodríguez-Beltrán

Pharmacology of antimicrobial drugs comprises pharmacodynamics (PD) and pharmacokinetics (PK). PD refers to studying drugs' mode of action at different concentrations on their molecular targets and the resulting effect(s). PK refers to studying the way(s) by which drugs enter and are distributed to reach their targets in different compartments (such as tissues in the body) and how the local drug concentrations are modified in time, as by metabolism or excretion. PD and PK constitute pivotal knowledge to establish breakpoints used to identify the appropriate antimicrobial agents in therapy of infections. Antibiotic resistance is the biological force opposing antimicrobial pharmacological effects. However, we do not have a term similar to pharmacology for microbial resistance reactions. Here, we propose the new scientific field of Antechology (from classic Greek antechó, resistance) studying the dynamics and kinetics of antibiotic resistance molecules, opposing the effect of antimicrobial drugs. Antechodynamics (AD) refers to the study of the molecular mechanisms by which antibiotic molecules are chemically modified or degraded by particular bacterial resistance enzymes (primary effectors), or drive the modification of the antibiotic target inhibition sites by molecules released by the antibiotic action on the microorganism (secondary effectors). Antechokinetics (AK) refers to the study of the processes leading to bacterial spatial cellular (subcellular, pericellular, extracellular) localizations of the molecules involved in antibiotic detoxifying mechanisms. Molecules' local concentrations change over time due to their production, degradation, and, eventually, excretion rates. The AD and AK for the different antimicrobial families, and the relation PD/PK and AD/AK is examined here