Antibacterial Prodrugs to Overcome Bacterial Resistance
Date
2020-03-28
Authors
Jubeh, Buthaina
Breijyeh, Zeinab
Karaman, Rafik
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
MDPI
Abstract
Bacterial resistance to present antibiotics is emerging at a high pace that makes the
development of new treatments a must. At the same time, the development of novel antibiotics
for resistant bacteria is a slow-paced process. Amid the massive need for new drug treatments to
combat resistance, time and e ort preserving approaches, like the prodrug approach, are most needed.
Prodrugs are pharmacologically inactive entities of active drugs that undergo biotransformation before
eliciting their pharmacological e ects. A prodrug strategy can be used to revive drugs discarded due
to a lack of appropriate pharmacokinetic and drug-like properties, or high host toxicity. A special
advantage of the use of the prodrug approach in the era of bacterial resistance is targeting resistant
bacteria by developing prodrugs that require bacterium-specific enzymes to release the active drug.
In this article, we review the up-to-date implementation of prodrugs to develop medications that are
active against drug-resistant bacteria.
Description
Keywords
prodrugs , biotransformation , targeting , β-lactam antibiotics , β-lactamases , pathogens , resistance