Slime molds as a valuable source of antimicrobial agents

• Main Author: Vida Tafakori
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: SpringerOpen 2021-06-01
• Series: AMB Express
• Subjects: Multidrug; Resistance; Antibiotics; Natural products; Myxomycetes
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1186/s13568-021-01251-3

Abstract Given the emerging multidrug-resistant pathogens, the number of effective antimicrobial agents to deal with the threat of bacterial and fungal resistance has fallen dramatically. Therefore, the critical solution to deal with the missing effective antibiotics is to research new sources or new synthetic antibiotics. Natural products have different advantages to be considered antimicrobial agents. There are different natural sources for antimicrobial agents, such as bacteria, fungi, algae, slime molds, and plants. This article has focused on antibiotics from slime molds, especially Myxomycetes. The reason why slime molds have been chosen to be studied is their unique bioactive metabolites, especially over the past couple of decades. Some of those metabolites have been demonstrated to possess antibiotic activities. Hence, this article has focused on the potential of these creatures as an alternative source of antibiotics.