New Strategies to Counteract Antibiotic Resistance Mechanisms
A special issue of Marine Drugs (ISSN 1660-3397).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (28 February 2019) | Viewed by 18681
Special Issue Editors
Interests: marine alkaloids; heterocycles; drug discovery; synthesis; bioactive compounds; antitumor activity; antibiofilm activity; and kinase inhibitors
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: antibiotic resistance; anti-biofilm agents; anti-virulence compounds; anticancer derivatives; sortase A inhibitors
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Antibiotic resistance is an issue of great concern associated with a high social and economic burden.
The excessive use and misuse of antibiotics, as well as the continual evolution and adaptation of microorganisms, are the main causes of multidrug resistance. There is an urgent need for new therapeutic strategies that may restrain or inhibit the mechanisms of resistance.
Antibiotic resistance may exist at cellular and community levels (biofilm).
At the cellular level, drug resistance is essentially due to: (i) enzymatic resistance, causing inactivation of the antibiotic, (ii) chemical modification of the antibiotic target or expression of an alternative target, and (iii) changes in cell permeability (efflux pumps).
At community level, biofilm structure physically limits the penetration of antibiotics in resident bacterial cells and, moreover, the deepest layers of biofilm contain specific bacterial subpopulations, which are metabolically less active and, therefore, intrinsically resistant to conventional antibiotics.
Biofilm formation significantly contributes to microbial survival in hostile environments and it is a key virulence factor for pathogens responsible of serious chronic infections, such as pneumonia in cystic fibrosis patients, osteomyelitis, chronic wound infections and otitis. The majority of antibiotics effective on planktonic cells are inactive against biofilms.
The marine environment is an important source of compounds endowed with antimicrobial properties. Marine invertebrates, such as sponges, are a prolific source of antibacterial compounds, with many interesting modes of action. Representative examples are the bis(indole) alkaloid deoxytopsentin, isolated from the sponge Spongosorites sp, and the 1H-benzo[de][1,6]-naphthyridine alkaloid isoaaptamin, isolated from the Aaptos aaptos marine sponge, which showed potent Sortase A inhibitory activity with IC50 values of 15.67 µg/ml and IC50 of 3.7 µg/ml.
This Special Issue will focus on the development of new marine drugs effective in the treatment of antibiotic resistance mechanisms at both bacterial cell and community levels, especially on compounds able to target virulence mechanisms, such as bacterial adhesion to host tissues, without effecting microbial viability.
In particular, studies on the anti-virulence mechanisms of these compounds are especially encouraged.
Prof. Dr. Patrizia Diana
Dr. Stella Maria Cascioferro
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- Anti-virulence compounds
- Anti-biofilm agents
- Sortase A inhibitors
- Anti-adhesion compounds
- MRSA
- Antibiotic resistance
- Dispersal agents
- c-di-GMP signaling
- c-di-AMP pathway
- efflux pump inhibitors
- Marine drugs
- Antibacterial compounds from marine source
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