Abstract:The abuse of antibiotics and the massive migration of population make pathogenic bacteria resistant to drugs and co-infect with other pathogens, which have posed a serious threat to human life safety. Therefore, the development of new antibacterial drugs has become an urgent problem to be solved. Alanine racemase is a type of isomerases that uses pyridoxal phosphate as the coenzyme to catalyze the optical structure interchange of L-alanine and D-alanine. Its racemic product D-alanine plays a decisive role in the formation of bacterial cell wall, which is closely related to bacterial diseases. Inhibition of the activity of alanine racemase will affect the survival of bacteria. In recent years, it has become an ideal target for the design of antibacterial drugs. The development of inhibitors has become a hot topic in the research and development of antibacterial drugs. This paper systematically elaborated the source, structure, function, application and inhibitor of alanine racemase, and proposed a new strategy for the research of alanine racemase, which would provide a theoretical basis for further research on the relationship between alanine racemase and pathogenic bacteria and the candidate targets of antibacterial drugs.