Abstract
Antibiotic resistance is a growing global problem that affects people, animals, the environment, and the economy. Many clinically relevant bacteria have become resistant to antibiotics, and this fact is emerging as one of the major threats to public health. The lack of new antibiotics, which is due to their time-consuming and costly development, exacerbates the problem. Therefore, it is necessary to identify new antimicrobial agents to treat bacterial and fungal infections. Plant extracts, which are valuable sources of bioactive compounds, mainly polyphenols, play an important role as a new strategy to combat pathogenic microorganisms. There is an extensive body of supporting evidence for the potent antibacterial and antifungal activities of polyphenols. Furthermore, some polyphenols show a synergistic effect when combined with antibiotics and antifungals, suggesting a promising alternative for therapeutic strategies against antibiotic resistance. However, only a few articles are found when searching the antibacterial or antifungal activities of polyphenols employing clinical isolates. Hence, this review focuses on the antimicrobial activity of polyphenols and extracts rich in polyphenols on clinical isolates, organized according to the World Health Organization priority pathogens classification.
Highlights
Antibiotics are used to prevent and treat infections caused by bacteria
These solutions were studied against three clinical isolates of multi-drug resistant (MDR) A. baumannii from blood and respiratory samples, and the authors found that norwogonin was the most active polyphenol of all tested; it showed no synergy when combined with several antibiotics
The two polyphenolic extracts evaluated demonstrated different antibacterial properties depending on the antibiotic resistance profile of the bacteria tested, and this was related with their different polyphenolic composition: C. salviifolius extract, which contained hydrolysable tannins and flavonoids such as myricetin and quercetin derivates, was more effective against MRSA isolates, while P. granatum extract, containing mostly hydrolysable tannins, such as punicalin and punicalagin, demonstrated higher activity against methicillin-sensitive S. aureus (MSSA) isolates
Summary
Antibiotics are used to prevent and treat infections caused by bacteria. Their discovery has been a historic milestone which has revolutionized medical practice, industrial microbiology, and human life in general. Important medical conditions such as bloodstream infections and pneumonia can be caused by these bacteria They can develop resistance against a broad spectrum of antibiotics such as carbapenems or third generation cephalosporins [6,7]. The other groups—the high and medium priority categories—are composed of other increasingly drug-resistant bacteria that cause more common diseases, such as gonorrhea, and food poisoning, such as Salmonella [6,7] Another term related to multidrug resistant bacteria is “ESKAPE”, a bacterial group which includes 6 pathogens with growing multidrug resistance and virulence: Enterococcus faecium, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Enterobacter spp. All free articles meeting the criteria are summarized
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