Synergistic Combinatorial Treatments to Overcome Antibiotic Resistance

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Background

Antimicrobial resistance inflicting microbial infections are an increasing worldwide problem, most recently involving multidrug-resistant (MDR) microorganisms such as the highlighted WHO ESKAPE group (Enterococcus faecium, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Escherichia coli). These infections cannot be fought with first-line antibiotics, rather necessitates more potent and combined antimicrobial agents.

For these patients with MDR infections, the duration of illness and in-hospital treatment increases, and so are the economic burdens on the healthcare system and families. Due to the frequency and ease in which people nowadays travel around the world, and how this significantly increases the occurrence of these infections, the WHO classifies the need to combat infections caused by MDR microorganisms as a high priority problem.

The main reason why the cost of developing new antibiotics is so high, is due to the fact that, most of the available pharmaceutical targets have already been attempted and antibiotic resistance has been found. Combination therapies of antibiotics with different antimicrobial agents could optimize the effectiveness of the therapy. Therefore, further research in this area is necessary to create more treatment possibilities for infections caused by multidrug-resistant microorganisms.

Novel antimicrobial agents like bacterial kinase inhibitors or cationic micelles are promising options for the treatment of resistant bacteria infections. However, the research for these new targets and the development of these therapies takes longer and costs more. The aim of this Research Topic is to explore the use of combinatorial therapies and their possible synergistic effects to inactivate microorganisms that possess multiple antibiotic resistance mechanisms. We would like to explore these combinatorial therapies through the methods of biosynthesis of nanocomposites, functionalization of antimicrobial agents, green synthesis of nanoparticles and their use in combination with traditional antimicrobial agents, combinatorial therapies with antimicrobial peptides, as well as the use of biopolymers as vehicles and adjuvants for nanoparticles or other antimicrobial agents. Metal nanoparticles, as example, are currently used to potentiate classic antibiotics, alone or functionalized with biopolymers and are capable to synergistically enhance the antimicrobial effect against multidrug resistant Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

This special issue on Research Topic focuses, in addition to the currently practiced antimicrobial combination, on how various antimicrobial agents could act synergistically to overcome an antibiotic resistance mechanisms. This includes, but is not limited to, using novel antimicrobial molecules or bio-composites made biopolymers as adjuvants to enhance traditional antimicrobials, and modifying existent antibiotics or conjugating green synthesized nanoparticles to achieve microbial inhibition. This research topic encourages the submission of original research articles, reviews, short communications, perspectives, and opinion papers, following, but not limited, the below aspects:

• Antimicrobial synergy as re-sensitizing mechanism
• Combinatorial treatments to improve classical antibiotics
• Green synthesis of antimicrobial composites
• Antimicrobial peptides as synergistic adjuvants
• Biopolymers as antimicrobial enhancers
• Nanoparticles conjugation as antimicrobial enhancer

Keywords: Antibiotic Resistance, Synergistic Treatments, antimicrobial nanocomposites, Green synthesis, antimicrobial peptides, antimicrobial biopolymers, antimicrobial nanoparticles

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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