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REVIEW article

Front. Pharmacol.
Sec. Pharmacology of Infectious Diseases
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fphar.2024.1385261
This article is part of the Research Topic Antimicrobial Resistance and Modern Therapeutics Approaches View all 9 articles

Endolysin: A new antimicrobial agent against antimicrobial resistance, strategies and opportunities in overcoming the challenges of endolysin against Gram-negative bacteria.

Provisionally accepted
Fazal M. Khan Fazal M. Khan 1Fazal Rasheed Fazal Rasheed 2Yunlan Yang Yunlan Yang 3Bin LIU Bin LIU 3Rui Zhang Rui Zhang 3*
  • 1 Institute for Advanced Study, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China
  • 2 Nanophotonics Research Center, Institute of Microscale Optoelectronics, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China., Shenzhen, China
  • 3 Institute for Advanced Study, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are rapidly emerging, and the increasing prevalence of multidrug-resistant (MDR) Acinetobacter baumannii poses a severe threat to humans and healthcare organizations, due to the lack of innovative antibacterial drugs. Endolysins, which are peptidoglycan hydrolases encoded by a bacteriophage, are a promising new family of antimicrobials. Endolysins have been demonstrated as an effective therapeutic agent against bacterial infections of A. baumannii and many other Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. Endolysin research has progressed from basic in vitro characterization to sophisticated protein engineering methodologies, including advanced preclinical and clinical testing. Endolysin are therapeutic agent that shows antimicrobial properties against bacterial infections caused by drug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria, there are still barriers to their implementation in clinical settings, such as safety concerns with outer membrane permeabilizers (OMP) use, low efficiency against stationary phase bacteria, and stability issues. The application of protein engineering and formulation techniques to improve enzyme stability, as well as combination therapy with other types of antibacterial drugs to optimize their medicinal value, have been reviewed as well. In this review, we summarize the clinical development of endolysin and its challenges and approaches for bringing endolysin therapies to the clinic. This review also discusses the different applications of endolysins. Keywords: Antimicrobial resistance, Antimicrobial agent, A. baumannii, Gram-negative bacteria, Endolysin.

    Keywords: antimicrobial resistance, antimicrobial agent, A. baumannii, Gram-Negative Bacteria, endolysin

    Received: 12 Feb 2024; Accepted: 16 Apr 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Khan, Rasheed, Yang, LIU and Zhang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Rui Zhang, Institute for Advanced Study, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, 518060, Guangdong Province, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.