Diversity of the bacteriocins, their classification and potential applications in combat of antibiotic resistant and clinically relevant pathogens

Abstract

There is almost a century since discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming, a century of enthusiasm, abuse, facing development of antibiotic-resistance and clear conclusion that the modern medicine needs a new type of antimicrobials. Bacteriocins produced by Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, Archaea and Eukaryotes were widely explored as potential antimicrobials with several applications in food industry. In last two decades bacteriocins showed their potential as promising alternative therapeutic for the treatment of antibiotic-resistant pathogens. Bacteriocins can be characterised as highly selective antimicrobials and therapeutics with low cytotoxicity. Most probably in order to solve the problems associated with the increasing number of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, the application of natural or bioengineered bacteriocins in addition to synergistically acting preparations of bacteriocins and conventional antibiotics, can be the next step in combat versus drug-resistant pathogens. In this overview we focussed on diversity of specific lactic acid bacteria and their bacteriocins. Moreover, some additional examples of bacteriocins from non-lactic acid, Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, Archaea and eukaryotic organisms are presented and discussed. Therapeutic properties of bacteriocins, their bioengineering and combined applications, together with conventional antibiotics, were evaluated with the scope of application in human and veterinary medicine for combating (multi-)drug-resistant pathogens.

Keywords:

• Lactic acid bacteria
• bacteriocins
• multidrug resistant pathogens

Author contributions

Concept: SDT; Writing of the manuscript: GHC, SDT; Manuscript figures: SDT; Corrections and editing: SDT, WHH

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Data availability statement

All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article.

Additional information

Funding

This project was supported by the HEMPharma, Republic of Korea.