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Spices as Eco-friendly Microbicides: From Kitchen to Clinic
Published in Mahendra Rai, Chistiane M. Feitosa, Eco-Friendly Biobased Products Used in Microbial Diseases, 2022
Antimicrobial drug resistance is of two types, ‘microbiological’ and ‘clinical’. When a strain is not susceptible to a dosage above an established breakpoint level, based on standardized CLSI protocols, is called microbiological resistance. It can be ‘primary’ if the pathogen is innately resistant without any prior exposure to the drug and ‘secondary’ if the resistance develops after repeated exposure to a drug. Chemosensitization by natural compounds to increase effectiveness of commercial antimycotics is a somewhat new approach to deal with drug resistant organisms. Chemosensitizing agents possess antifungal activity, but at insufficient levels to serve as antimycotics, alone. Their main function is to disrupt fungal stress response, destabilize the structural integrity of cellular and vacuolar membranes or stimulate production of reactive oxygen species, augmenting oxidative stress and apoptosis. These agents function mainly as synergists that affect the target pathogen in such a way that it becomes more vulnerable (chemosensitized) to the commercial antimycotic agent (Campbell et al. 2012).
The Special Sense Organs and Their Disorders
Published in Walter F. Stanaszek, Mary J. Stanaszek, Robert J. Holt, Steven Strauss, Understanding Medical Terms, 2020
Walter F. Stanaszek, Mary J. Stanaszek, Robert J. Holt, Steven Strauss
An otologist is a specialist in treating disorders of the ear. This specialty is often combined with treatment of the upper respiratory tract (otolaryngology), and the patient may be referred to an otolaryngologist for hearing disorders. Antimicrobial drugs are used in treatment of otitis media to eradicate the pathogen, shorten the period of illness, and prevent suppurative (pus) complications. Myringotomy, incision into the tympanic membrane, is a procedure utilized for drainage of the middle ear. A tympanoplasty or myringoplasty is performed to repair perforations of the tympanic membrane that do not satisfactorily heal spontaneously.
Laccase-Mediated Synthesis of Novel Antibiotics and Amino Acid Derivatives
Published in Peter Grunwald, Pharmaceutical Biocatalysis, 2019
The increasing problems of antimicrobial drug resistance require the development of new antimicrobial agents. The laccase-mediated reaction of various compounds is a promising method to enlarge the range of currently available antibiotics, amino acid derivatives and biomaterials. This method permits the use of mild reaction conditions: room temperature, neutral-pH-values, normal pressure, and aqueous solvent systems. Reactions can be driven to the formation of homo- or heteromolecular products by the selection of suitable laccases, laccase substrates, reaction partners and conditions and variation of these parameters shifts the product pattern from no products to dimers, trimers, higher oligomers or to polymers. Additionally, hundreds of nonlaccase substrate reaction partners, all with very different structures can be used for coupling reactions, derivatizations or polymerizations in heteromolecular laccase-mediated syntheses forming various C–N, C–O, C–S or C–C bonds. For the future, we envisage that an impressive number of combinations of laccase substrates and reaction partners can be tested in combinatorial syntheses in the field of antibiotics and amino acid derivatives as well as in general for the synthesis of new chemicals.
Antibiotic use: A cross-sectional survey assessing the knowledge, attitudes, and practices amongst students of Punjab, Pakistan
Published in Journal of American College Health, 2022
Shahid Shah, Ghulam Abbas, Zunera Chauhdary, Ayesha Aslam, Anees ur Rehman, Haris Khurram, Sibgha Noreen, Usman Rashid Chand, Muhammad Haseeb Younis, Umar Zulfiqar
Regarding the knowledge of side effects of antibiotics, 36.57% of participants agreed that antibiotics can kill the good bacteria residing in our body and 63.05% agreed that antibiotics can be a cause of allergic reactions, while the half of the participants (49.33%) agreed that antimicrobial drugs can lead to secondary infections by killing the beneficial bacteria residing in our bodies. When asked about knowledge of antibiotic resistance, most participants (75.81%) knew that “antibiotic resistance is a phenomenon in which the sensitivity of bacteria to an antibiotic is lost” and 71.05% agreed that the misuse of antibiotics can lead to antibiotic resistance to a particular pathogen. In addition, only 15.05% of students said the medicine can be stopped without completing the symptom improvement course (Figure 1).
Repeated vaccination and ‘vaccine exhaustion’: relevance to the COVID-19 crisis
Published in Expert Review of Vaccines, 2022
Md Anwarul Azim Majumder, Mohammed S. Razzaque
Vaccines protect recipients by eliciting immune responses and communities by reducing transmission of infection. However, newer strains with markedly increased transmissibility have frustrated efforts to control the spread of COVID-19. The Omicron BA.1 and BA.2 variants of SARS-CoV-2 are examples of rapidly evolving new strains. The overuse of antimicrobial drugs frequently induces drug resistance. The potential for repeated vaccination to cause vaccine exhaustion and, consequently, reduce protection against microbial infection merits further study. Existing studies have identified microbial evolution, immune suppression, immune evasion, and repeated vaccination as probable causes of vaccine resistance. Emerging recommendations for repeated vaccination against COVID-19 have raised concern that booster doses could contribute to viral mutations leading to longer-term vaccine resistance.
The war against bacteria, from the past to present and beyond
Published in Expert Review of Anti-infective Therapy, 2022
Lucrezia Bottalico, Ioannis Alexandros Charitos, Maria Assunta Potenza, Monica Montagnani, Luigi Santacroce
Antimicrobial drugs that inhibit or slow down the growth and proliferation of microorganisms are considered microbiostatic agents and include sulfonamides, tetracyclines, macrolides, chloramphenicol, novobiosin, and thiamulin. Instead, agents that destroy and kill microorganisms are called microbicides and comprehend, among others, penicillins, cephalosporins, aminoglycosides, colistin, bacitracin [1,4,83]. This is not an absolute distinction, as the antibiotic activity of each molecule is related to several factors, including its concentration at the infection site as well as the type and nature of the targeted microorganism. Antibiotics such as benzylpenicillin, lincomycin, or thiamulin (this last for veterinary use) are microbiostatic at low concentrations and microbicidal at high concentrations. Depending on their activity spectrum, antimicrobials can be classified into two main categories: narrow spectrum (active toward either Gram-positive or Gram-negative bacteria) and broad-spectrum (active toward both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria) [84,85]. Antibiotic mechanisms of action vary according to their specific biochemical properties, and include a) selective disruption of bacterial metabolism, b) impaired synthesis of the cell wall (either by direct enzymatic digestion, or by inhibiting the action of enzymes, c) impaired synthesis of proteins, d) altered DNA metabolism, either by directly destroying DNA or by inhibiting the action of enzymes (Table 2) [86,87].