A determination of pan-pathogen antimicrobials?

Abstract

While antimicrobial drug development has historically mitigated infectious diseases that are known, COVID-19 revealed a dearth of ‘in-advance’ therapeutics suitable for infections by pathogens that have not yet emerged. Such drugs must exhibit a property that is antithetical to the classical paradigm of antimicrobial development: the ability to treat infections by any pathogen. Characterisation of such ‘pan-pathogen’ antimicrobials requires consolidation of drug repositioning studies, a new and growing field of drug discovery. In this review, a previously-established system for evaluating repositioning studies is used to highlight 4 therapeutics which exhibit pan-pathogen properties, namely azithromycin, ivermectin, niclosamide, and nitazoxanide. Recognition of the pan-pathogen nature of these antimicrobials is the cornerstone of a novel paradigm of antimicrobial development that is not only anticipatory of pandemics and bioterrorist attacks, but cognisant of conserved anti-infective mechanisms within the host-pathogen interactome that are only now beginning to emerge. Ultimately, the discovery of pan-pathogen antimicrobials is concomitantly the discovery of a new class of antivirals, and begets significant implications for pandemic preparedness research in a world after COVID-19.

Magic bullets, magic shields, and antimicrobials in between

“…Although some IAs display magic bullet PPP, I maintain that all derive their PPP from their network pharmacological, immunomodulating properties ( Fig. 3 ) [ [261] , [262] ].

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Isolation and Identification of Lactic Acid Bacteria from Channa sp. as Potential Probiotic

“…The probiotic isolates showed moderate antibacterial activity against Staphylococcus aureus. The diameter of the inhibition zone was categorized into low, moderate, and high antimicrobial activity, based on the size of the inhibition zone (Prathapan, 2022). The table of antimicrobial test results indicated that S1-3 had the lowest inhibition zone size of 1.90 inches/mm, indicating low antimicrobial activity, while S3-3 had the highest inhibition zone size of 7.17 inches/mm, indicating high antimicrobial activity (Figure 1).…”

The African Kelleni’s roadmap using nitazoxanide and broad-spectrum antimicrobials to abort returning to COVID-19 square one

“…Importantly, we also highly urge all researchers to separate the trials using nitazoxanide for mild–moderate COVID-19 from those using it to manage severe COVID-19 (Rocco et al 2022 ) in all future meta-analysis studies and to focus mainly on its early use to manage COVID-19. Interestingly, some excellent reviews have thoroughly discussed the potential and available clinical evidence when nitazoxanide is repurposed to manage COVID-19 (Al-kuraishy et al 2022 ; Firth and Prathapan 2021 ; Kelleni 2022b ; Lokhande and Devarajan 2021 ; Mahmoud et al 2020 ; Prathapan 2022 ).…”