Targeting Bacterial Membrane Proteins to Explore the Beneficial Effects of Natural Products: New Antibiotics against Drug Resistance

Antibiotic resistance is currently a world health crisis that urges the development of new antibacterial substances. To this end, natural products, including flavonoids, alkaloids, terpenoids, steroids, peptides and organic acids play a vital role in the development of medicines and thus constitute a rich source in clinical practices, providing an important source of drugs directly or for the screen of lead compounds for new antibiotic development. Because membrane proteins, which comprise more than 60% of the current clinical drug targets, play crucial roles in signal transduction, transport, bacterial pathogenicity and drug resistance, as well as immunogenicity, it is our aim to summarize those natural products with different structures that target bacterial membrane proteins, such as efflux pumps and enzymes, to provide an overview for the development of new antibiotics to deal with antibiotic resistance.

Automated summary

Antibiotic resistance is a global health crisis, and the development of new antibacterial substances is urgently needed. Natural products, such as flavonoids, alkaloids, terpenoids, steroids, peptides, and organic acids, play a crucial role in medicine development, providing important drugs or lead compounds for new antibiotic development. Membrane proteins, which are the major drug targets, have key functions in signal transduction, transport, bacterial pathogenicity, drug resistance, and immunogenicity. Therefore, natural products that target bacterial membrane proteins, such as efflux pumps and enzymes, are important for the development of new antibiotics to combat antibiotic resistance.