Ribosomally Synthesized Bacteriocins as Potent Anti-infective Agents, Their Medical and Pharmaceutical Applications

The development of multidrug-resistant bacteria (MDRB) and the emergence of new lethal diseases have raised the need for potent anti-infective agents with different killing action mechanisms that contribute to treating and/or supporting the currently used drugs. For this purpose, bacteriocins are considered excellent candidates with promising potential. Bacteriocins are ribosomally synthesized antimicrobial peptides that are produced by many bacterial genera. They are characterized by high thermal stability, being active over a wide pH range, and having specificity against selected bacterial strains by employing specific receptors on their cell membrane, which encourages bacteriocins to use in clinical applications as support and/or alternatives currently used antibiotics. Interestingly, bacteriocins have many advantages over antibiotics, such as the relative difficulty of developing resistance compared to broad-spectrum antibiotics. Moreover, due to their simple biosynthetic mechanisms, bacteriocins can be easily bioengineered, which improves their activity or specificity against selected microorganisms. Additionally, bacteriocins originating from lactic acid bacteria have the extra safety advantage because many LAB and their products are classified by the American Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to be generally recognized as safe (GRAS). Bacteriocins have promising pharmaceutical potentials as anti-infective agents, anti-MDRB agents, antileishmanial, and antiviral agents. Moreover, bacteriocins have been used to treat many ulcers, tumors, and cancers. In this chapter, we highlight the importance of bacteriocins as anti-infective agents, describing their common action mechanisms and recent clinical and therapeutical applications of bacteriocins. Finally, prospects in this field are discussed to discover and develop more diverse and efficient bacteriocins with potent anti-infective activities.