The emergence of antimicrobial-resistant pathogens is one of the most
serious public health threats that result mostly from the inappropriate and
indiscriminate use of conventional antibiotics for the treatment of infectious diseases.
These antibiotics mainly affect bacterial viability, resulting in the emergence of
resistant pathogens under this selective pressure. Thus, in turn, necessary to explore the
search for novel antimicrobial agents with a novel mechanism of action. The newer
class of antimicrobial agents, which target bacterial pathogenesis and virulence instead
of affecting bacterial viability, represents an alternate and interesting approach to
treating bacterial infections. Quorum sensing (QS) target is one of the main targets
among the various antivirulence and anti-pathogenesis approaches since it plays a
significant role in the expression of virulence and pathogenesis factors during the
infection process. The metabolites or compounds from plants and microorganisms have
been reported to inhibit quorum sensing. Due to the extensive diversity and complexity
of natural products as compared to conventional antibiotics, they show a wide range of
mechanisms of action. The use of natural QS inhibitors or quorum quenchers provides
a potential strategy and has been adopted as a model for the discovery of new
antimicrobial agents as quorum sensing inhibitors. In this chapter, the advancement in
searching for promising novel targets for the development of natural next-generation
antimicrobials to conquer infections caused by bacterial pathogens has been discussed
in detail.
Keywords: Antivirulence, Antimicrobial agents, Antibiotic resistance, Quorum Sensing, Quorum Sensing Inhibitors, Quorum Quenchers.
