Abstract
Antibiotics are low molecular microbial metabolites that have been used since the 1950s to control bacterial diseases of high-value horticulture and ornamental plants. Bactericidal and bacteriostatic antibiotics were used in agriculture. Although antibiotics were produced primarily for the medical profession and their use was limited by cost, some experiments were conducted soon after they were first produced commercially to determine their effectiveness in the control of plant diseases. In present days, streptomycin and oxytetracycline antibiotics are the most commonly used bacterial disease management in plants. The effectiveness of antibiotics is influenced by a number of factors including antibiotic concentration, method of application, temperature and humidity in addition to host and pathogen factors. The prolonged application of antibiotics in an inappropriate manner is triggering the problem of antibiotic resistance depending on the modes of action, structures, and functional and biochemical properties of antibiotics. A variety of antibiotic resistance mechanisms were expressed in various genes present in pathogens which encode some specific types of enzymes to alter antibiotics into being non-toxic. The main mechanisms of antibiotic resistance were expressed in targeted pathogens by various means of mutation, modification, and replacement of various genes and target sites of antibiotics. The rational use of antibiotics is one of the key approaches to increasing the efficacy of antibiotics and prevention of resistance in future for the bacterial disease management.
Keywords: Antimicrobial metabolites, Antibiotic resistance, Actinomycetes, Bactericidal antibiotics, Bacterial diseases, Streptomyces.