ABSTRACT

Introduction: The widespread use of antimicrobial drugs during the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and the likely emergence of antibiotic-resistant microorganisms is a global health concern. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, several antimicrobial drugs have lost their efficacy and are no longer useful to treat life-threatening infections. Since the exacerbation of antimicrobial resistance is likely to be another casualty of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a pressing need to develop innovative strategies to minimize the risk of antimicrobial resistance.

Areas covered: Focusing on the COVID-19 pandemic, I have briefly summarized the current knowledge and challenges in our understanding of antimicrobial resistance, emphasizing quorum sensing and quorum quenching. Our understanding of bacterial communication by quorum sensing to acquire virulence has paved the way to reduce bacterial pathogenicity through quorum quenching. Availability of clinically viable quorum quenching agents would likely to diminish bacterial virulence to create a microenvironment for the host phagocytic cells to reduce bacterial infection.

Expert opinion: Future studies that aim to generate clinically useful quorum quenching agents need to be considered. An important benefit of such agents may be a diminished risk of antimicrobial resistance.

摘要

简介：在持续的 2019 年冠状病毒病 (COVID-19) 大流行期间抗菌药物的广泛使用以及抗生素抗性微生物的可能出现是全球健康问题。甚至在 COVID-19 大流行之前，几种抗菌药物已经失去效力，不再用于治疗危及生命的感染。由于抗菌素耐药性的加剧可能是 COVID-19 大流行的另一个受害者，因此迫切需要制定创新策略以最大程度地降低抗菌素耐药性的风险。

涵盖的领域：针对 COVID-19 大流行，我简要总结了我们对抗菌素耐药性理解的当前知识和挑战，强调了群体感应和群体淬灭。我们对通过群体感应获得毒力的细菌通讯的理解为通过群体淬灭降低细菌致病性铺平了道路。临床上可行的群体猝灭剂的可用性可能会降低细菌毒力，为宿主吞噬细胞创造一个微环境，以减少细菌感染。

专家意见：需要考虑旨在产生临床上有用的群体猝灭剂的未来研究。此类药物的一个重要益处可能是降低了抗微生物药物耐药性的风险。