Abstract
Abstract Microbial biofilm is defined as an association of bacterial and fungal cells, fixed to surfaces, biotic or abiotic, included in a complex extracellular matrix of polymeric substances (EPS). It is estimated that approximately 65% of microbial infections are caused by biofilm-forming microorganisms, representing a serious public health problem. In addition, the integrity of machinery and equipment in industries can be compromised by the presence of biofilms, causing significant economic losses. Therefore, there is an urgent need to discover new drugs that are effective against biofilms, which are non-toxic. Natural products have been extensively studied due to their enormous antimicrobial efficacy, like garlic, chitosan derivatives, various peptide spices, products derived from plants and essential oils. Thus, the purpose of this review is to describe the most promising anti-biofilm compounds derived from natural products for bacteria and fungi. One way of treating infections is to use medicinal plants. They have several compounds that have antimicrobial properties and raise your interest in medicine for the treatment of infections. Essential oils are secondary metabolites produced by plants; they act by damaging the extracellular matrix and eliminate adherence factors, contributing to the failure in the construction of the biofilm. Other strategy is the Cationic antimicrobial peptides (AMPs). They are short linear amino acid sequences, which display antimicrobial activity against a wide range of bacterial species. It is a promising novel antimicrobials since they have shown bactericidal effects against multiresistant bacteria. Bacteria and fundi are also capable of producing substances such as peptides and other compounds, which can act as antimicrobials, inhibiting the growth of other microorganisms. This review describes the most promising anti-biofilm compounds, derived from natural products that act against bacteria and fungi. However, the treatment with these compounds must bestudied in detail, since biofilms increase microbial resistance and have strategies to decrease the penetration of antimicrobial substances through their polysaccharide matrix.
Highlights
Microbial biofilm is defined as an association of bacterial and fungal cells, fixed to surfaces, biotic or abiotic, included in a complex extracellular matrix of polymeric substances (EPS) [1]
Each species and lineage of microorganism has a type of extracellular matrix, which depends on the environmental niche where the biofilm was formed [3]
Chitosan derivatives, various peptide spices, products derived from plants and essential oils, are examples of these products, which can act to combat biofilms in different ways, as preventing bacterial adhesion to surfaces; interfering in the production of chemical molecules crucial for their development and disrupting the extracellular matrix [14,15,16]
Summary
Microbial biofilm is defined as an association of bacterial and fungal cells, fixed to surfaces, biotic or abiotic, included in a complex extracellular matrix of polymeric substances (EPS) [1]. Each species and lineage of microorganism has a type of extracellular matrix, which depends on the environmental niche where the biofilm was formed [3] This matrix strongly adheres to biotic and abiotic surfaces, causing persistent and difficult-to-treat infections [1]. The production of EPS begins to form the polymeric extracellular matrix, resulting in the irreversible adhesion of microorganisms to the contact surface. In this phase, microorganisms already adhered to the surface, start cell multiplication and the extracellular polysaccharide acts as a kind of glue, to group microbial cells. The purpose of this review is to describe the most promising anti-biofilm compounds derived from natural products for bacteria and fungi
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