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Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry

Editor-in-Chief

ISSN (Print): 1568-0266
ISSN (Online): 1873-4294

Review Article

Eradicating Bacterial Biofilms with Natural Products and their Inspired Analogues that Operate Through Unique Mechanisms

Author(s): Aaron T. Garrison and Robert W. Huigens III*

Volume 17, Issue 17, 2017

Page: [1954 - 1964] Pages: 11

DOI: 10.2174/1568026617666161214150959

Price: $65

Abstract

Bacterial biofilms are surface-attached communities of slow- or non-replicating bacterial cells that display high levels of tolerance toward conventional antibiotic therapies. It is important to know that our entire arsenal of conventional antibiotics originated from screens used to identify inhibitors of bacterial growth, so it should be little surprise that our arsenal of growth-inhibiting agents have little effect on persistent biofilms. Despite this current state, a diverse collection of natural products and their related or inspired synthetic analogues are emerging that have the ability to kill persistent bacterial biofilms and persister cells in stationary cultures. Unlike conventional antibiotics that hit bacterial targets critical for rapidly-dividing bacteria (i.e., cell wall machinery, bacterial ribosomes), biofilm-eradicating agents operate through unique growth-independent mechanisms. These naturally occurring agents continue to inspire discovery efforts aimed at effectively treating chronic and recurring bacterial infections due to persistent bacterial biofilms.

Keywords: Bacterial biofilms, Persister cells, Natural products, Biofilm-eradicating agents, Drug discovery.

Graphical Abstract

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