Natural Product Antimicrobial Activity Against Multidrug-Resistant Bacteria
Summary
Multidrug-resistant bacteria pose a severe threat to public health, as conventional antibiotics lose efficacy and new drug pipelines remain sparse. Natural products—compounds derived from plants, fungi, marine organisms and microorganisms—have historically underpinned antibiotic discovery and continue to offer structurally diverse scaffolds capable of circumventing resistance mechanisms. Secondary metabolites such as alkaloids, flavonoids, terpenoids and polyketides display a variety of antibacterial modes of action, including membrane disruption, enzyme inhibition and efflux pump modulation. Ethnobotanical leads and systematic screening of crude extracts yield libraries of active fractions, which can be refined through bioassay-guided fractionation and in silico docking studies. Synergy between natural compounds and existing antibiotics has emerged as a promising approach to restore susceptibility in resistant strains. In vivo models further validate safety and efficacy, while advances in synthetic biology and genome mining enable scalable production of rare metabolites. The global significance of this research lies in its potential to replenish the dwindling antibacterial armamentarium, inform drug-design strategies and deliver novel therapies, especially for Gram-negative pathogens such as Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae.
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Natural Product Antimicrobial Activity Against Multidrug-Resistant Bacteria publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in natural product antimicrobial activity against multidrug-resistant bacteria across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Multidrug-resistant bacteria: Bacterial strains resistant to three or more classes of antibiotics.
Minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC): The lowest concentration of an antimicrobial that prevents visible growth.
Minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC): The lowest concentration of an antimicrobial that kills 99.9% of bacteria.
Phytochemical: A bioactive compound produced by plants, often involved in defence against pathogens.
In silico screening: Computational methods used to predict interactions between compounds and molecular targets.
References
- Searching for new agents against Enterobacteriaceae from nature: approaches, potential plant species, isolated compounds, and their respective properties. Phytochemistry Reviews (2023).
- A Systematic Review of Plants With Antibacterial Activities: A Taxonomic and Phylogenetic Perspective. Frontiers in Pharmacology (2021).
- Phytochemical investigation and antimicrobial appraisal of Parrotiopsis jacquemontiana (Decne) Rehder. BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies (2018).
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