Institute of Microbiology and Infection, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK.
Virulence. 2013 May 15;4(4):284-94. doi: 10.4161/viru.24606.
Bacterial infections are a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide and are increasingly problematic to treat due to the rise in antibiotic-resistant strains. It becomes more and more challenging to develop new antimicrobials that are able to withstand the ever-increasing repertoire of bacterial resistance mechanisms. This necessitates the development of alternative approaches to prevent and treat bacterial infections. One of the first steps during bacterial infection is adhesion of the pathogen to host cells. A pathogen's ability to colonize and invade host tissues strictly depends on this process. Thus, interference with adhesion (anti-adhesion therapy) is an efficient way to prevent or treat bacterial infections. As a basis to present different strategies to interfere with pathogen adhesion, this review briefly introduces general concepts of bacterial attachment to host cells. We further discuss advantages and disadvantages of anti-adhesion treatments and issues that are in need of improvement so as to make anti-adhesion compounds a more broadly applicable alternative to conventional antimicrobials.
细菌感染是全球发病率和死亡率的主要原因，由于抗生素耐药菌株的增加，治疗难度越来越大。开发能够抵御不断增加的细菌耐药机制的新型抗菌药物变得越来越具有挑战性。这就需要开发替代方法来预防和治疗细菌感染。细菌感染的第一步是病原体与宿主细胞的黏附。病原体定植和侵袭宿主组织的能力严格依赖于这一过程。因此，干扰黏附（抗黏附治疗）是预防或治疗细菌感染的有效方法。作为介绍干扰病原体黏附的不同策略的基础，本文简要介绍了细菌与宿主细胞附着的一般概念。我们进一步讨论了抗黏附治疗的优缺点以及需要改进的问题，以使抗黏附化合物成为比传统抗菌药物更广泛应用的替代方法。
