Prama Ghosh, Amity University Kolkata
Increasing resistance to antibiotics by infectious microbes is emerging as a serious threat to mankind. To tackle this problem, nanomaterials are rapidly rising by improving the power of existing antibiotics or producing altogether new antibacterial instruments.
An antibiotic works by inhibiting the synthesis of DNA, RNA or cell wall of the pathogen. The pathogen undergoes mutation by delivering their cell wall impermeable to drug molecules, overexpressing multidrug efflux siphons to remove drugs, reshuffling the genetic code of drug targets or secreting toxic enzymes to destroy the antibiotics before they reach their targets. Such an imbalance between the evolution of microbes and traditional antibiotics forced researchers to turn to nanomaterials for a solution.
In one category, nanomaterials are designed as carriers which can overcome cellular barriers of the pathogen and deliver the drug particles directly into the cytoplasm thereby destroying the pathogen. This increases the potency of the drug as there is less exposure of the drug molecules. The other category uses nanomaterials to break extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) and penetrate the EPS matrix to destroy the cell.
According to Ivanova and co-authors, sharp, blade-like nanostructures pierce into the bacteria which creates cell destructive pores. Nanomaterials can stretch the bacterial cell wall from two different contact points which causes disruption and deformation of bacterial cell walls. Nanomaterials can also work on more than one target by delivering multiple drug molecules due to which nanomaterials may turn into a backbone for treating bacterial diseases in the time of antibiotic resistance.
Source: Gao, W., Zhang, L. Nanomaterials arising amid antibiotic resistance. Nat Rev Microbiol (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41579-020-00469-5
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