Assessment of phytoconstituents from members of the family piperaceae and their efficacy as antibacterial compounds

Abstract

Infectious diseases have become a menace to mankind and many of them are life-threatening (Bloom and Cadarette, 2019). Most of these contagious diseases are caused by various microorganisms of which bacterial infections have been known from primaeval days (Piret and Boivin, 2021). The discovery of antibiotics as antimicrobial drugs plays a vital role in handling infectious complications, especially in the last few decades (Fair and Tor, 2014). At the same time, resistance to antibiotics by many bacteria makes the situation complex for the therapy against such pathogens (Andersson et al., 2020). An exponential increase in multidrug resistance of infectious microorganisms along with the appearance of new pathogenic strains is causing the situation worse with increasing mortality rates (Terreni et. al., 2021; Cataleno et. al., 2022). The development of drug resistance is implicated due to the indiscriminate use of antibiotics. Antimicrobial resistance is the survival strategy of microorganisms that is acquired by mutation and/or by the horizontal transfer of genetic materials by various mechanisms (Pang et al., 2019). The defensive mechanism makes the infections more severe and difficult to treat, increasing the risk of disease dispersal and morbidity rate (Katona and Katona-Apte, 2008). Conventional therapy against multidrug-resistant bacteria is few, mostly relying on combination therapy involving multiple antibiotics (Katona and Katona-Apte, 2008). In this scenario, novel antimicrobials are sought, and also there is an urgent necessity to find out novel therapeutic approaches against such resistant strains. newline