Abstract
The rise of multidrug-resistant human pathogenic bacteria is calling for alternative approaches to design antibacterial drugs. Here, we review new approaches based on antisense oligonucleotides as antibacterial agents, fecal microbiota transplantation, and antimicrobial peptides and cell-penetrating peptides with antibacterial activity.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Akdag IO, Ozkirimli E (2013) The Uptake Mechanism of the Cell-Penetrating pVEC Peptide. J Chem 2013:15–23. https://doi.org/10.1155/2013/851915
Alaybeyoglu B, Sariyar Akbulut B, Ozkirimli E (2018) pVEC hydrophobic N-terminus is critical for antibacterial activity. J Pept Sci 24:e3083
Benincasa M, Pacor S, Gennaro R, Scocchi M (2009) Rapid and reliable detection of antimicrobial peptide penetration into gram-negative bacteria based on fluorescence quenching. Antimicrob Agents Chemother 53:3501–3504
Borysowski J, Górski A (2008) Is phage therapy acceptable in the immunocompromised host? Int J Infect Dis 12:466–471
Chan JH, Lim S, Wong WS (2006) Antisense oligonucleotides: from design to therapeutic application. Clin Exp Pharmacol Physiol 33:533–540
Cizmas L, Sharma VK, Gray CM, McDonald TJ (2015) Pharmaceuticals and personal care products in waters: occurrence, toxicity, and risk. Environ Chem Lett 13:381–394
Cociancich S, Dupont A, Hegy G, Lanot R, Holder F, Hetru C, Hoffmann JA, Bulet P (1994) Novel inducible antibacterial peptides from a hemipteran insect, the sap-sucking bug Pyrrhocoris apterus. Biochem J 300(Pt 2):567–575
Daghrir R, Drogui P (2013) Tetracycline antibiotics in the environment: a review. Environ Chem Lett 11:209–227
Domingo-Calap P, Georgel P, Bahram S (2016) Back to the future: bacteriophages as promising therapeutic tools. Hla 87:133–140
Duckworth DH (1976) “Who discovered bacteriophage?” Bacteriol Rev 40:793–802
Durzynska J, Przysiecka L, Nawrot R, Barylski J, Nowicki G, Warowicka A, Musidlak O, Gozdzicka-Jozefiak A (2015) Viral and other cell-penetrating peptides as vectors of therapeutic agents in medicine. J Pharmacol Exp Ther 354:32–42
Fensterseifer ICM, Felicio MR, Alves ESF, Cardoso MH, Torres MDT, Matos CO, Silva ON, Lu TK, Freire MV, Neves NC, Goncalves S, Liao LM, Santos NC, Porto WF, de la Fuente-Nunez C, Franco OL (2019) Selective antibacterial activity of the cationic peptide PaDBS1R6 against Gram-negative bacteria. Biochim Biophys Acta Biomembr 1861:1375–1387
Fernández L, McPhee JB, Tamber S, Brazas MD, Lewenza S, Hancock RE (2009) Antibiotic resistance due to reduced uptake, pp 97–110
Fischetti VA (2005) Bacteriophage lytic enzymes: novel anti-infectives. Trends Microbiol 13:491–496
Garau J, Nicolau DP, Wullt B, Bassetti M (2014) Antibiotic stewardship challenges in the management of community-acquired infections for prevention of escalating antibiotic resistance. J Glob Antimicrob Resist 2:245–253
Geary RS (2009) Antisense oligonucleotide pharmacokinetics and metabolism. Expert Opin Drug Metab Toxicol 5:381–391
Goodridge LD (2010) Designing phage therapeutics. Curr Pharm Biotechnol 11:15–27
Hollister EB, Gao C, Versalovic J (2014) Compositional and functional features of the gastrointestinal microbiome and their effects on human health. Gastroenterology 146:1449–1458
Jończyk-Matysiak E, Łodej N, Kula D, Owczarek B, Orwat F, Międzybrodzki R, Neuberg J, Bagińska N, Weber-Dąbrowska B, Górski A (2019) Factors determining phage stability/activity: challenges in practical phage application. Expert Rev Anti Infect Ther 17:583–606
Kaloudas D, Pavlova N, Penchovsky R (2018) EBWS: essential bioinformatics web services for sequence analyses. IEEE/ACM Trans Comput Biol Bioinform 16(3):942–953
Kauffman WB, Fuselier T, He J, Wimley WC (2015) Mechanism matters: a taxonomy of cell penetrating peptides. Trends Biochem Sci 40:749–764
Khoruts A, Dicksved J, Jansson JK, Sadowsky MJ (2010) Changes in the composition of the human fecal microbiome after bacteriotherapy for recurrent Clostridium difficile-associated diarrhea. J Clin Gastroenterol 44:354–360
Kurreck J (2003) ’Antisense technologies. Improvement through novel chemical modifications. Eur J Biochem/FEBS 270:1628–1644
Langdon A, Crook N, Dantas G (2016) The effects of antibiotics on the microbiome throughout development and alternative approaches for therapeutic modulation. Genome Med 8:39
Langel U (2019) Classes and applications of cell-penetrating peptides. In: Cell-penetrating peptides (CPP). Springer, Singapore
Le CF, Fang CM, Sekaran SD (2017) Intracellular targeting mechanisms by antimicrobial peptides. Antimicrob Agents Chemother 61
Lehman SM, Donlan RM (2015) Bacteriophage-mediated control of a two-species biofilm formed by microorganisms causing catheter-associated urinary tract infections in an in vitro urinary catheter model. Antimicrob Agents Chemother 59:1127–1137
Lindblad W (2008) Review paper: considerations for determining if a natural product is an effective wound-healing agent. Int J Lower Extrem Wounds 7:75–81
Lv M, Duan B, Lu K, Wu Y, Zhao Y (2017) Synthesis, DNA-binding and antibacterial activity of the cell-penetrating peptide HIV-1 Tat (49–57). Indian J Pharm Sci 79:893–899
Malik S, Sidhu PK, Rana JS, Nehra K (2019) Managing urinary tract infections through phage therapy: a novel approach. Folia Microbiol (Praha)
Mantravadi PK, Kalesh KA, Dobson RCJ, Hudson AO, Parthasarathy A (2019) The quest for novel antimicrobial compounds: emerging trends in research, development, and technologies. Antibiotics (Basel) 8:8
Mardirossian M, Grzela R, Giglione C, Meinnel T, Gennaro R, Mergaert P, Scocchi M (2014) The host antimicrobial peptide Bac71-35 binds to bacterial ribosomal proteins and inhibits protein synthesis. Chem Biol 21:1639–1647
Mayers DL, Sobel JD, Ouellette M, Kaye KS, Marchaim D (2017) Antimicrobial drug resistance: mechanisms of drug resistance, vol 1. Springer, Cham
Meng L, Ward AJ, Chun S, Bennett CF, Beaudet AL, Rigo F (2015) Towards a therapy for Angelman syndrome by targeting a long non-coding RNA. Nature 518:409–412
Meyers S, Shih J, Neher JO, Safranek S (2018) Clinical Inquiries: how effective and safe is fecal microbial transplant in preventing C difficile recurrence? J Fam Pract 67:386–388
Moller-Olsen C, Ho SFS, Shukla RD, Feher T, Sagona AP (2018) Engineered K1F bacteriophages kill intracellular Escherichia coli K1 in human epithelial cells. Sci Rep 8:17559
Mullish BH, Quraishi MN, Segal JP, McCune VL, Baxter M, Marsden GL, Moore DJ, Colville A, Bhala N, Iqbal TH, Settle C, Kontkowski G, Hart AL, Hawkey PM, Goldenberg SD, Williams HRT (2018) The use of faecal microbiota transplant as treatment for recurrent or refractory Clostridium difficile infection and other potential indications: joint British Society of Gastroenterology (BSG) and Healthcare Infection Society (HIS) guidelines. Gut 67:1920–1941
Munita JM, Arias CA (2016) Mechanisms of antibiotic resistance. Microbiol Spectr 4:1–24. https://doi.org/10.1128/microbiolspec.VMBF-0016-2015
Nakase I, Akita H, Kogure K, Graslund A, Langel U, Harashima H, Futaki S (2012) Efficient intracellular delivery of nucleic acid pharmaceuticals using cell-penetrating peptides. Acc Chem Res 45:1132–1139
Nan YH, Park IS, Hahm KS, Shin SY (2011) Antimicrobial activity, bactericidal mechanism and LPS-neutralizing activity of the cell-penetrating peptide pVEC and its analogs. J Pept Sci 17:812–817
Narayanan S, Modak JK, Ryan CS, Garcia-Bustos J, Davies JK, Roujeinikova A (2014) Mechanism of Escherichia coli resistance to Pyrrhocoricin. Antimicrob Agents Chemother 58:2754–2762
Paik J, Duggan S (2019) Volanesorsen: first global approval. Drugs 79:1349–1354
Palm C, Netzereab S, Hallbrink M (2006) Quantitatively determined uptake of cell-penetrating peptides in non-mammalian cells with an evaluation of degradation and antimicrobial effects. Peptides 27:1710–1716
Pavlova N, Kaloudas D, Penchovsky R (2019) Riboswitch distribution, structure, and function in bacteria. Gene 708:38–48
Pelfrene E, Willebrand E, Cavaleiro Sanches A, Sebris Z, Cavaleri M (2016) Bacteriophage therapy: a regulatory perspective. J Antimicrob Chemother 71:2071–2074
Penchovsky R, Traykovska M (2015) Designing drugs that overcome antibacterial resistance: where do we stand and what should we do? Expert Opin Drug Discov 10:631–650
Pfalzgraff A, Brandenburg K, Weindl G (2018) Antimicrobial peptides and their therapeutic potential for bacterial skin infections and wounds. Front Pharmacol 9:281
Reiner Ž (2018) Triglyceride-rich lipoproteins and novel targets for anti-atherosclerotic therapy. Korean Circ J 48:1097–1119
Rinaldi C, Wood MJA (2018) Antisense oligonucleotides: the next frontier for treatment of neurological disorders. Nat Rev Neurol 14:9–21
Rodgers K, McLellan I, Peshkur T, Williams R, Tonner R, Hursthouse AS, Knapp CW, Henriquez FL (2019) Can the legacy of industrial pollution influence antimicrobial resistance in estuarine sediments? Environ Chem Lett 17:595–607
Rodriguez L, Martinez B, Zhou Y, Rodriguez A, Donovan DM, Garcia P (2011) Lytic activity of the virion-associated peptidoglycan hydrolase HydH5 of Staphylococcus aureus bacteriophage vB_SauS-phiIPLA88. BMC Microbiol 11:138
Rodriguez Plaza JG, Morales-Nava R, Diener C, Schreiber G, Gonzalez ZD, Lara Ortiz MT, Ortega Blake I, Pantoja O, Volkmer R, Klipp E, Herrmann A, Del Rio G (2014) Cell penetrating peptides and cationic antibacterial peptides: two sides of the same coin. J Biol Chem 289:14448–14457
Rodriguez-Mozaz S, Chamorro S, Marti E, Huerta B, Gros M, Sanchez-Melsio A, Borrego CM, Barcelo D, Balcazar JL (2015) Occurrence of antibiotics and antibiotic resistance genes in hospital and urban wastewaters and their impact on the receiving river. Water Res 69:234–242
Runti G, Benincasa M, Giuffrida G, Devescovi G, Venturi V, Gennaro R, Scocchi M (2017) The mechanism of killing by the proline-rich peptide Bac7(1–35) against clinical strains of pseudomonas aeruginosa differs from that against other gram-negative bacteria. Antimicrob Agents Chemother 61
Scocchi M, Tossi A, Gennaro R (2011) Proline-rich antimicrobial peptides: converging to a non-lytic mechanism of action. Cell Mol Life Sci 68:2317–2330
Seil M, Nagant C, Dehaye JP, Vandenbranden M, Lensink MF (2010) Spotlight on Human LL-37, an immunomodulatory peptide with promising cell-penetrating properties. Pharmaceuticals 3(11):3435–3460. https://doi.org/10.3390/ph3113435
Selgelid MJ (2007) Ethics and drug resistance. Bioethics 21:218–229
Sharma S, Chatterjee S, Datta S, Prasad R, Dubey D, Prasad RK, Vairale MG (2017) Bacteriophages and its applications: an overview. Folia Microbiol (Praha) 62:17–55
Shi H, Ni J, Zheng T, Wang X, Chuanfu Wu, Wang Q (2020) ’Remediation of wastewater contaminated by antibiotics. A review. Environ Chem Lett 18:345–360
Shogbesan O, Poudel DR, Victor S, Jehangir A, Fadahunsi O, Shogbesan G, Donato A (2018) A systematic review of the efficacy and safety of fecal microbiota transplant for clostridium difficile infection in immunocompromised patients. Can J Gastroenterol Hepatol 2018:1394379
Singh SB, Phillips JW, Wang J (2007) Highly sensitive target-based whole-cell antibacterial discovery strategy by antisense RNA silencing. Curr Opin Drug Discov Devel 10:160–166
Splith K, Neundorf I (2011) Antimicrobial peptides with cell-penetrating peptide properties and vice versa. Eur Biophys J 40:387–397
Stein CA, Castanotto D (2017) FDA-approved oligonucleotide therapies in 2017. Mol Ther 25:1069–1075
Sully EK, Geller BL (2016) Antisense antimicrobial therapeutics. Curr Opin Microbiol 33:47–55
Tang SS, Apisarnthanarak A, Hsu LY (2014) Mechanisms of beta-lactam antimicrobial resistance and epidemiology of major community- and healthcare-associated multidrug-resistant bacteria. Adv Drug Deliv Rev 78:3–13
Taniguchi M, Ochiai A, Kondo H, Fukuda S, Ishiyama Y, Saitoh E, Kato T, Tanaka T (2016) Pyrrhocoricin, a proline-rich antimicrobial peptide derived from insect, inhibits the translation process in the cell-free Escherichia coli protein synthesis system. J Biosci Bioeng 121:591–598
Traykovska M, Miedema S, Penchovsky R (2018) Clinical trials of functional nucleic acids: antisense oligonucleotides and aptamers. Int J Biomed Clin Eng (IJBCE) 7(2):46–60
Valsamatzi-Panagiotou A, Popova KB, Penchovsky R (2020) Drug discovery for targeting drug resistant bacteria. In: Panwar H, Sharma C, Lichtfouse E (eds) Sustainable agriculture reviews 46 mitigation of antimicrobial resistance vol 1 tools and targets. Springer, Berlin
Vellar I (2002) Howard Florey, Alexander Fleming and the fairy tale of penicillin. Med J Aust 177:52
Waksman SA, Flynn JE (1973) History of the word ’antibiotic. J Hist Med Allied Sci 28:284–286
Wang Z, Wang X, Wang J (2018) Recent advances in antibacterial and antiendotoxic peptides or proteins from marine resources. Mar Drugs 16:57
Wei L, Gao J, Zhang S, Wu S, Xie Z, Ling G, Kuang YQ, Yang Y, Yu H, Wang Y (2015) Identification and characterization of the first cathelicidin from sea snakes with potent antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory activity and special mechanism. J Biol Chem 290:16633–16652
Wilson BC, Vatanen T, Cutfield WS, O’Sullivan JM (2019) The super-donor phenomenon in fecal microbiota transplantation. Front Cell Infect Microbiol 9:2
Wright GD (2009) Making sense of antisense in antibiotic drug discovery. Cell Host Microbe 6:197–198
Yoon MY, Yoon SS (2018) Disruption of the gut ecosystem by antibiotics. Yonsei Med J 59:4–12
Zhu WL, Lan H, Park IS, Kim JI, Jin HZ, Hahm KS, Shin SY (2006) Design and mechanism of action of a novel bacteria-selective antimicrobial peptide from the cell-penetrating peptide Pep-1. Biochem Biophys Res Commun 349:769–774
Acknowledgements
This work was financially supported by Bulgarian National Science Fund under Grant No. DN/13/14/20.12.2017 and partially by the Operational Programme “Science and Education for Smart Growth” 2014-2020, co-funded by the European Union through the European structural and investment funds: Project BG05M2OP001-1.002-0019 “Clean technologies for sustainable environment – water, waste, energy for circular economy” (Clean&Circle CoC) by funding of the experts labor.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Popova, K.B., Valsamatzi-Panagiotou, A. & Penchovsky, R. New drug discovery strategies for targeting drug-resistant bacteria. Environ Chem Lett 19, 1995–2004 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10311-021-01181-3
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10311-021-01181-3