engleski

Natural antimicrobials: an introduction

From historical point of view, nature has always been a rich source of materials, and medicines also came from this vast and immeasurable resource. Ethnologically-based information still has great potential for future explanations of bioactivities of such medicines. Although epidemiological measures (vaccinations) and antimicrobial treatments curb infectious diseases, there is still an urgent need for well-defined molecules from nature. With the decline of de novo synthesis of new chemical entities, the main focus of nature-derived molecule research among the group of antimicrobials is clear definition of antimicrobial spectrum of activities, mechanism of action, stability, mutagenicity and genotoxicity. The possible road is also in silico studies of antimicrobial activities of natural molecules from natural products databases. Cleary displayed preclinical studies may lead to the in vivo studies which can prove the indication of such natural molecules. The main obstacles such as low bioavailability, short half-life and low PK/PD values will be a great challenge for future research. Considering the emerging new diseases, such as SARS-CoV-2 nowadays, and rising scientific awareness about testing known natural molecules, the area of natural antimicrobials is fast, prominent and still encouraging.

ethnobiology ; natural products ; bioactivity ; antimicrobials ; emerging diseases

Mahendra Rai is thankful to the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange (NAWA) for financial support (Project No. PPN/ULM/2019/1/00117/A/DRAFT/00001) to visit the Department of Microbiology, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń, Poland.