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Review
. 2021 Nov 29;22(23):12890.
doi: 10.3390/ijms222312890.

Antimicrobial Resistance and Inorganic Nanoparticles

Andrea-Sarahí Balderrama-González  1 , Hilda-Amelia Piñón-Castillo  2 , Claudia-Adriana Ramírez-Valdespino  1 , Linda-Lucila Landeros-Martínez  2 , Erasmo Orrantia-Borunda  1 , Hilda-Esperanza Esparza-Ponce  1
Affiliations
Review

Antimicrobial Resistance and Inorganic Nanoparticles

Andrea-Sarahí Balderrama-González et al. Int J Mol Sci. .

Abstract

Antibiotics are being less effective, which leads to high mortality in patients with infections and a high cost for the recovery of health, and the projections that are had for the future are not very encouraging which has led to consider antimicrobial resistance as a global health problem and to be the object of study by researchers. Although resistance to antibiotics occurs naturally, its appearance and spread have been increasing rapidly due to the inappropriate use of antibiotics in recent decades. A bacterium becomes resistant due to the transfer of genes encoding antibiotic resistance. Bacteria constantly mutate; therefore, their defense mechanisms mutate, as well. Nanotechnology plays a key role in antimicrobial resistance due to materials modified at the nanometer scale, allowing large numbers of molecules to assemble to have a dynamic interface. These nanomaterials act as carriers, and their design is mainly focused on introducing the temporal and spatial release of the payload of antibiotics. In addition, they generate new antimicrobial modalities for the bacteria, which are not capable of protecting themselves. So, nanoparticles are an adjunct mechanism to improve drug potency by reducing overall antibiotic exposure. These nanostructures can overcome cell barriers and deliver antibiotics to the cytoplasm to inhibit bacteria. This work aims to give a general vision between the antibiotics, the nanoparticles used as carriers, bacteria resistance, and the possible mechanisms that occur between them.

Keywords: antimicrobial resistance; bacteria; nanoparticles; resistance mechanism.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Extra chromosomal mutation: transformation, conjugation, and transduction. Created with BioRender.com (accessed on 17 November 2021).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Efflux pump families: (a) ABC, (b) MATE, (c) SMR, (d) MFS, (e) RND. Created with BioRender.com (accessed on 17 November 2021).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Action mechanism of inorganic nanoparticles. Created with BioRender.com (accessed on 17 November 2021).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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