Antimicrobial Adjuvants- An Innovative Strategy for Handling Antimicrobial Resistance Displayed by Microbes

Human and animal health care workers around the world are sounding the alarm for the development of new antibiotics to counter the ever growing menace of multidrug resistant pathogenic bacteria However there are increasing numbers of reports regarding extremely drug resistant bacteria for which there are limited or no therapeutic options So far the drug discovery has failed to keep pace with the rapidly evolving microbes which has resultantly lead to innovation gap related to development and marketing of new antibiotics Moreover microbial resistance towards antimicrobials is a way complex and multifaceted mechanism Nevertheless many strategies may be employed to minimize the impact and emergence of resistance Use of antimicrobial adjuvants are one of such effective strategies These adjuvants are chemically active moieties that have slight to no antibiotic action but may block antimicrobial resistance or boost action of antimicrobial They are therefore administered along with antimicrobials and may be divided broadly into two important groups The Class I agents having direct action on microbe whereas Class II agents having direct action on host defense mechanisms to potentiate antimicrobial action Antimicrobial adjuvants are a mean to suppress the emergence of bacterial resistance as well as rescue the antimicrobial activity of present drugs in a cost effective manner presenting an orthogonal approach to new antibiotic discovery