Development and Application of Plant Antimicrobial Substance—2nd Volume

Dear Colleagues,

Officinal plants were traditionally used to treat or alleviate infectious and chronic diseases. Their health-beneficial properties are mediated by a pool of bioactive molecules contained in the plants. Over the last few decades, growing antimicrobial resistance has seriously compromised the efficacy of antimicrobial agents. These events strongly promoted the study of biological activities of natural extracts in order to find interesting antimicrobial agents, which allow us to overcome the current therapeutic limitations.

Numerous studies have focused on infectious diseases, confirming the ability of plant extracts to inhibit the in vitro growth of many human pathogens. Many studies also investigated the phytochemical analysis of natural extracts, revealing the biologically active substances and their mechanisms of action. However, only a few studies proved the development and therapeutic applicability of the natural bioactive compounds, probably because these compounds possess an intrinsic efficacy too low to be usable in clinical practice without the risk of harmful side-effects.

The focus of this Special Issue is on the antimicrobial activity of natural extracts, paying attention to the methods and strategies aimed to potentiate their antimicrobial actions. These include:

• Technologies by which plant-derived antimicrobials can be delivered (liposomes, nanoparticles, etc.)
• Developing natural products as potential anti-biofilm agents
• Plant Antimicrobial Peptides. (Laboratory and clinical studies showed that resistance to AMPs is less likely than resistance to conventional antibiotics. This is due to their membrane-targeting mechanisms of action. Indeed, compared to the common resistance strategies, which mainly target macromolecular synthesis (DNA, RNA, and protein), the mechanism of action of AMP is more efficient.)

Besides applications in human therapy, it would be interesting to include studies on their application in the food industry, such as the development of antimicrobial food-packaging systems. This is one possible aspect, but there may be alternative proposals. Manuscripts regarding other fields of application of substances extracted from plants are also welcome.

Dr. Floriana D'Angeli
Dr. Daria Nicolosi
Prof. Dr. Carlo Genovese
Guest Editors

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• plant extracts
• drug delivery
• biofilm inhibition
• plant antimicrobial peptides
• antimicrobial food packaging systems