Figure 1.

Antibiotics induce active death processes underlying lethality. Target inhibition directly triggers lethality by disrupting essential cellular processes (black). Stress responses induced by such disruptions indirectly trigger lethality by increasing metabolic demand and generating metabolic byproducts that damage cellular components (e.g., DNA, proteins, lipids) (blue). Environmental factors tune antibiotic lethality by acting on stress responses and/or altering bacterial metabolism.