The Quest for Novel Antimicrobial Compounds: Emerging Trends in Research, Development, and Technologies

Isolation and whole-genome sequencing of Pseudomonas sp. RIT 623, a slow-growing bacterium endowed with antibiotic properties

OBJECTIVE

There is an urgent need for the discovery and/or development of novel antibiotics. We report an exploration of "slow"-growing bacteria, which can be difficult to isolate using rich media as they are usually outcompeted by "fast"-growing bacteria, as potential sources of novel antimicrobials.

RESULTS

Pseudomonas sp. RIT 623 was isolated using pond water agar from a pond located on the campus of the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). The genome was sequenced and analyzed for potential secondary metabolite gene clusters. Bioinformatics analysis revealed 14 putative gene clusters predicted to encode pathways for the anabolism of secondary metabolites. Ethyl acetate extracts from spent growth medium of Pseudomonas sp. RIT 623 were tested against two Gram-negative (E. coli ATCC 25922 and P. aeruginosa ATCC 27853) and two Gram-positive (B. subtilis BGSC 168 and S. aureus ATCC 25923) type strains to assess antibiotic activity. The antibiotic assays demonstrated that extracts of Pseudomonas sp. RIT 623 were able to inhibit the growth of the four strains. The active compound was separated using diethyl ether in a multi-solvent extraction and reverse phase chromatography. The bioactive compound/s were subsequently eluted in two consecutive fractions corresponding to approximately 16-22% acetonitrile, indicative of polar compound/s.

Chromium Coordination Compounds with Antimicrobial Activity: Synthetic Routes, Structural Characteristics, and Antibacterial Activity

A major threat to public health worldwide is that the antimicrobial activity of the established drugs is constantly reduced due to the resistance that bacteria develop throughout the years. Some transition metal complexes show higher antibacterial activity against several bacteria compared to those of clinically used antibiotics. Novel classes of molecules provide new challenges and seem promising to solve the crisis that the overuse of antibiotics has led over the last years. This review discusses the challenges of chromium-based metallodrugs as antimicrobial agents. In particular, the synthetic routes, the structural characteristics, as well as the antimicrobial activity of 32 chromium (III) complexes have been presented.

Antibiotic drug discovery: Challenges and perspectives in the light of emerging antibiotic resistance

Amid a rising threat of antimicrobial resistance in a global scenario, our huge investments and high-throughput technologies injected for rejuvenating the key therapeutic scaffolds to suppress these rising superbugs has been diminishing severely. This has grasped world-wide attention, with increased consideration being given to the discovery of new chemical entities. Research has now proven that the relatively tiny and simpler microbes possess enhanced capability of generating novel and diverse chemical constituents with huge therapeutic leads. The usage of these beneficial organisms could help in producing new chemical scaffolds that govern the power to suppress the spread of obnoxious superbugs. Here in this review, we have explicitly focused on several appealing strategies employed for the generation of new chemical scaffolds. Also, efforts on providing novel insights on some of the unresolved questions in the production of metabolites, metabolic profiling and also the serendipity of getting "hit molecules" have been rigorously discussed. However, we are highly aware that biosynthetic pathway of different classes of secondary metabolites and their biosynthetic route is a vast topic, thus we have avoided discussion on this topic.

Optimization of a High-Throughput 384-Well Plate-Based Screening Platform with Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 25923 and Pseudomonas aeruginosa ATCC 15442 Biofilms

In recent years, bacterial infections have become a main concern following the spread of antimicrobial resistance. In addition, bacterial biofilms are known for their high tolerance to antimicrobials and they are regarded as a main cause of recalcitrant infections in humans. Many efforts have been deployed in order to find new antibacterial therapeutic options and the high-throughput screening (HTS) of large libraries of compounds is one of the utilized strategies. However, HTS efforts for anti-biofilm discovery remain uncommon. Here, we miniaturized a 96-well plate (96WP) screening platform, into a 384-well plate (384WP) format, based on a sequential viability and biomass measurements for the assessment of anti-biofilm activity. During the assay optimization process, different parameters were evaluated while using Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa as the bacterial models. We compared the performance of the optimized 384WP platform to our previously established 96WP-based platform by carrying out a pilot screening of 100 compounds, followed by the screening of a library of 2000 compounds to identify new repurposed anti-biofilm agents. Our results show that the optimized 384WP platform is well-suited for screening purposes, allowing for the rapid screening of a higher number of compounds in a run in a reliable manner.

Future Antibacterial Strategies: From Basic Concepts to Clinical Challenges

This review presents potential benefits and limitations of innovative strategies that are currently investigated for the discovery of novel antibacterial agents to prevent or treat infections caused by multidrug-resistant organisms.

Chitosan as a Wound Dressing Starting Material: Antimicrobial Properties and Mode of Action

Fighting bacterial resistance is one of the concerns in modern days, as antibiotics remain the main resource of bacterial control. Data shows that for every antibiotic developed, there is a microorganism that becomes resistant to it. Natural polymers, as the source of antibacterial agents, offer a new way to fight bacterial infection. The advantage over conventional synthetic antibiotics is that natural antimicrobial agents are biocompatible, non-toxic, and inexpensive. Chitosan is one of the natural polymers that represent a very promising source for the development of antimicrobial agents. In addition, chitosan is biodegradable, non-toxic, and most importantly, promotes wound healing, features that makes it suitable as a starting material for wound dressings. This paper reviews the antimicrobial properties of chitosan and describes the mechanisms of action toward microbial cells as well as the interactions with mammalian cells in terms of wound healing process. Finally, the applications of chitosan as a wound-dressing material are discussed along with the current status of chitosan-based wound dressings existing on the market.

Novel Small-molecule Antibacterials against Gram-positive Pathogens of Staphylococcus and Enterococcus Species

Defeat of the antibiotic resistance of pathogenic bacteria is one great challenge today and for the future. In the last century many classes of effective antibacterials have been developed, so that upcoming resistances could be met with novel drugs of various compound classes. Meanwhile, there is a certain lack of research of the pharmaceutical companies, and thus there are missing developments of novel antibiotics. Gram-positive bacteria are the most important cause of clinical infections. The number of novel antibacterials in clinical trials is strongly restricted. There is an urgent need to find novel antibacterials. We used synthetic chemistry to build completely novel hybrid molecules of substituted indoles and benzothiophene. In a simple one-pot reaction, two novel types of thienocarbazoles were yielded. Both indole substituted compound classes have been evaluated as completely novel antibacterials against the Staphylococcus and Enterococcus species. The evaluated partly promising activities depend on the indole substituent type. First lead compounds have been evaluated within in vivo studies. They confirmed the in vitro results for the new classes of small-molecule antibacterials.

Lignin-Mediated Biosynthesis of ZnO and TiO2 Nanocomposites for Enhanced Antimicrobial Activity

In this work, we report the synthesis of fragmented lignin (FL) assisted zinc oxide (ZnO) and titanium oxide (TiO2) nanocomposites. The fragmented lignin synthesized from biomass (sugarcane bagasse) was used as a template to generate the morphology and crystallite structure of metal oxide nanomaterial. The nanocomposites were synthesized by a simple precipitation method, wherein fragmented lignin is used in alkaline medium as a template. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis shows the phase formation of hexagonal wurtzite ZnO and mixed phase formation of TiO2 as rutile and anatase. The morphology was studied by using field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM). The FE-SEM of pristine ZnO nanocomposites showed a cluster of particles whereas FL–ZnO NPs showed self-aligned nanoparticles in the form of rod shaped having average size 30–70 nm. Pristine TiO2 nanoparticles showed clusters of particles and FL–TiO2 nanocomposites showed well crystalline 41nm size nanocomposites. The FL acts as a surfactant which restrict the cluster formations. The band gap determined by diffuse reflectance spectra is 3.10 eV and 3.20 eV for FL–ZnO and FL–TiO2 nanocomposites, respectively. Photoluminescence spectra of both nanocomposites showed structural defects in the visible region. Further, the antimicrobial activity of pristine ZnO and TiO2 nanoparticles, and FL–ZnO and FL–TiO2 nanocomposites against Escherichia coli (ATCC25922), Staphylococcus aureus (ATCC25923) were studied under UV-A (315-400 nm) (8W) for 30min.