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REVIEW article
Front. Pharmacol.
Sec. Ethnopharmacology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fphar.2025.1545917
This article is part of the Research Topic Traditional Medicines in the Treatment of Infectious Diseases – Challenges and advances View all 5 articles
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The application of botanical drugs and their metabolites in the treatment of pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) has garnered significant attention. Owing to their broad-spectrum activity, global accessibility, and structural diversity, botanical drugs have emerged as promising candidates for adjunctive or alternative therapies. This review systematically summarizes botanical drugs and their metabolites, focusing on their antimicrobial potential against endogenous and exogenous pathogens associated with PID. Specifically, it addresses various underlying antibacterial mechanisms, including interference with bacterial cell membranes and cell walls, inhibition of pathogen-specific efflux pumps, modulation of pathogen-related gene expression, and synergistic effects when combined with conventional antibiotics. This review highlights the therapeutic promise of botanical drugs and their metabolites, emphasizing critical findings regarding their inhibitory effects on PID-associated pathogens. Such insights provide valuable guidance for future therapeutic strategies and may support ongoing antibiotic discovery and development.
Keywords: antimicrobial, Chlamydia trachomatis, Mechanism, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, Pelvic Inflammatory Disease
Received: 16 Dec 2024; Accepted: 21 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhong, Yan, Gao, Wu, Ji and Wei. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Xiao-Li Ji, Hospital of Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China
Shaobin Wei, Hospital of Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
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