Antimicrobial resistance remains a serious problem that results in high mortality and increased healthcare costs globally. One of the major issues is that resistant pathogens decrease the efficacy of conventional antimicrobials. Accordingly, development of novel antimicrobial agents and therapeutic strategies is urgently needed to overcome the challenge of antimicrobial resistance. A potential strategy is to kill pathogenic microorganisms via the formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). ROS are defined as a number of highly reactive molecules that comprise molecular oxygen (O2), superoxide anion (O2•-), hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and hydroxyl radicals (•OH). ROS exhibit antimicrobial actions against a broad range of pathogens through the induction of oxidative stress, which is an imbalance between ROS and the ability of the antioxidant defence system to detoxify ROS. ROS-dependent oxidative stress can damage cellular macromolecules, including DNA, lipids and proteins. This article reviews the antimicrobial action of ROS, challenges to ROS hypothesis, work to solidify ROS-mediated antimicrobial lethality hypothesis, recent developments in antimicrobial agents using ROS as an antimicrobial strategy, safety concerns related to ROS, and future directions in ROS research.

中文翻译：

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活性氧在抗菌剂生物学活性中的作用：最新的小型综述。

抗菌素耐药性仍然是一个严重的问题，导致高死亡率和全球医疗保健费用的增加。主要问题之一是耐药性病原体降低了常规抗菌剂的功效。因此，迫切需要开发新的抗微生物剂和治疗策略来克服抗微生物性的挑战。一种潜在的策略是通过形成活性氧（ROS）杀死病原微生物。ROS被定义为许多高反应性分子，包括分子氧（O2），超氧阴离子（O2•-），过氧化氢（H2O2）和羟基自由基（•OH）。ROS通过诱导氧化应激表现出对多种病原体的抗菌作用，这是ROS与抗氧化防御系统解毒ROS能力之间的不平衡。ROS依赖的氧化应激会损害细胞大分子，包括DNA，脂质和蛋白质。本文概述了ROS的抗菌作用，对ROS假设的挑战，巩固ROS介导的微生物致死性假设的工作，使用ROS作为抗菌策略的抗菌剂的最新进展，与ROS相关的安全性问题以及ROS研究的未来方向。