Abstract
The vegetal world constitutes the main factory of chemical products, in particular secondary metabolites like phenols, phenolic acids, terpenoids, and alkaloids. Many of these compounds are small molecules with antibacterial activity, although very few are actually in the market as antibiotics for clinical practice or as food preservers. The path from the detection of antibacterial activity in a plant extract to the practical application of the active(s) compound(s) is long, and goes through their identification, purification, in vitro and in vivo analysis of their biological and pharmacological properties, and validation in clinical trials. This review presents an update of the main contributions published on the subject, focusing on the compounds that showed activity against multidrug-resistant relevant bacterial human pathogens, paying attention to their mechanisms of action and synergism with classical antibiotics.
Highlights
There is a wide range of plant species on Earth (400,000–500,000 species)
Many of these compounds show antimicrobial activity, they do not receive the attention they deserve from doctors or veterinarians, because almost all antibiotics and antivirals on the market are produced by bacteria and fungi or are chemically synthesized
We focus on the antibacterial activity of small molecules of vegetal origin against human pathogenic bacteria, in particular multi-drug resistant clinical strains, describing their mechanism of action, and highlighting their anti-virulence properties
Summary
There is a wide range of plant species on Earth (400,000–500,000 species). Each plant is a small factory of chemical products, notably secondary metabolites, small molecules such as phenolics and polyphenols, terpenoids and essential oils, alkaloids, and others. The development as antimicrobials of most of the compounds from the plant world is complicated, due to their weak activity or their pharmacokinetic properties (difficulty of absorption in the gastro-intestinal tract or rapid metabolism) Improvement of their biological and pharmacological properties can be achieved through structural modifications. We focus on the antibacterial activity of small molecules of vegetal origin against human pathogenic bacteria, in particular multi-drug resistant clinical strains, describing their mechanism of action (when known), and highlighting their anti-virulence properties. It mainly includes contributions published in the last 20 years
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