Novel Strategies to Combat the Emerging Drug Resistance in Human Pathogenic Microbes

Abstract

The major health-care burden for the developing world are infectious diseases where antimicrobial agents prove to be the magical drugs to combat this. But the phenomenon of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) represents a challenging global issue, which requires to be addressed effectively. The antimicrobial treatment for the emerging multidrug-resistant bacterial (e.g. TB, Cholera) and fungal (e.g. Candidiasis) infections is very limited, and there are multiple causes and reasons responsible for the evolution of such resistance. Considering the critical issues of increasing AMR, there is an urgent requirement of the identification, development, validation, and progression of novel strategies and approaches that can easily be utilized for overcoming this serious issue. Immunotherapy represents a significant way to improve host defenses and combat the issue of antimicrobial drug resistance. Similarly, drug combination therapy represents another promising approach for reducing the evolution of resistance and enhancing the longevity of the antimicrobial agents. Bacteriophage therapy also acts as a novel therapeutic option to control the development of the multidrug resistance (MDR) phenomenon. Besides, CRISPR, an innovative genome editing technology, offers multiple applications to safeguard host defenses to overcome different resistance challenges. The novel approaches/ strategies like combination therapy, bacteriophage therapy, immunotherapy, and CRISPR/Cas discussed here presents an overview of some of the novel strategies/approaches to be adopted against the pathogenic microbes/microbial invasions along with advanced knowledge of different drug resistance mechanisms adopted by the microbial pathogens to gain resistance against different antimicrobial agents. Therefore, understanding the novel control plans/approaches and different drug resistance mechanisms will help achieve the goals of the successful development of potential antimicrobial drugs and their respective targets and eventually help curtail the problem of increasing antimicrobial drug resistance menace in various human pathogenic microbes.