Title:The Application of Nucleic Acids and Nucleic Acid Materials in Antimicrobial Research
Volume: 16
Issue: 1
Author(s): Yue Sun, Lingxian Meng, Yuxin Zhang, Dan Zhao and Yunfeng Lin*
Affiliation:
- State Key Laboratory of Oral Diseases, National Clinical Research Center for Oral Diseases, West China Hospital of Stomatology, Sichuan University, Chengdu,China
Keywords:
Antibiotic resistance, antibacterial, nucleic acid aptamers, antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs), antimicrobial peptides (AMP),
DNA nanostructures, metallic nanoparticles.
Abstract: Due to the misuse of antibiotics, multiple drug-resistant pathogenic bacteria have increasingly
emerged. This has increased the difficulty of treatment as these bacteria directly affect public health by
diminishing the potency of existing antibiotics. Developing alternative therapeutic strategies is the urgent
need to reduce the mortality and morbidity related to drug-resistant bacterial infections. In the past 10 to
20 years, nanomedicines have been widely studied and applied as an antibacterial agent. They have become
a novel tool for fighting resistant bacteria. The most common innovative substances, metal and
metal oxide nanoparticles (NPs), have been widely reported. Until recently, DNA nanostructures were
used alone or functionalized with specific DNA sequences by many scholars for antimicrobial purposes
which were alternatively selected as therapy for severe bacterial infections. These are a potential candidate
for treatments and have a considerable role in killing antibiotic-resistant bacteria. This review involves
the dimensions of multidrug resistance and the mechanism of bacteria developing drug resistance.
The importance of this article is that we summarized the current study of nano-materials based on nucleic
acids in antimicrobial use. Meanwhile, the current progress and the present obstacles for their antibacterial
and therapeutic use and special function of stem cells in this field are also discussed.
