Sustainable antibiofilm self-assembled colloidal systems

Abstract

Biofilms find a favorable environment in industrial processes such as food, cosmetic, or medical prosthesis and devices, being responsible of approximately 80% of human bacterial infections. Prevention and/or eradication of microorganism’ films is a worldwide need. There is an increasing interest on the finding and use of novel antimicrobial compounds without side effects. An additional challenge is to fight the antimicrobial resistance that some bacteria and microorganisms develop with traditional antibiotics. Also, in recent years, sustainability and natural source of the antibiofilm chemical principles are also a priority demand. Colloidal systems such as vesicles, particle suspensions, or emulsions are becoming increasingly useful tools for biocompound delivery due to their ability to protect the compound encapsulated against external factors and their possibility to be used as target delivery systems. During the last decade, these types of systems have been widely used for the encapsulation of traditional and novel compounds with antimicrobial properties. The present study summarizes different types of natural compounds tested against several types of bacteria and their feasibility to be encapsulated in different types of colloidal systems.