Title:Eradicating Bacterial Biofilms with Natural Products and their Inspired Analogues that Operate Through Unique Mechanisms
Volume: 17
Issue: 17
Author(s): Aaron T. Garrison and Robert W. Huigens III*
Affiliation:
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Center for Natural Products, Drug Discovery and Development (CNPD3), Assistant Professor at the University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32610, P.O. Box: 100485,United States
Keywords:
Bacterial biofilms, Persister cells, Natural products, Biofilm-eradicating agents, Drug discovery.
Abstract: Bacterial biofilms are surface-attached communities of slow- or non-replicating bacterial
cells that display high levels of tolerance toward conventional antibiotic therapies. It is important to
know that our entire arsenal of conventional antibiotics originated from screens used to identify inhibitors
of bacterial growth, so it should be little surprise that our arsenal of growth-inhibiting agents have
little effect on persistent biofilms. Despite this current state, a diverse collection of natural products
and their related or inspired synthetic analogues are emerging that have the ability to kill persistent
bacterial biofilms and persister cells in stationary cultures. Unlike conventional antibiotics that hit bacterial
targets critical for rapidly-dividing bacteria (i.e., cell wall machinery, bacterial ribosomes),
biofilm-eradicating agents operate through unique growth-independent mechanisms. These naturally
occurring agents continue to inspire discovery efforts aimed at effectively treating chronic and recurring
bacterial infections due to persistent bacterial biofilms.
