Usai Federica, Di Sotto Antonella
Department of Physiology and Pharmacology "V. Erspamer", Sapienza University of Rome, P.le Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Rome, Italy.
Antibiotics (Basel). 2023 Jan 27;12(2):254. doi: 10.3390/antibiotics12020254.
The increasing of drug-resistant bacteria and the scanty availability of novel effective antibacterial agents represent alarming problems of the modern society, which stimulated researchers to investigate novel strategies to replace or assist synthetic antibiotics. A great deal of attention has been devoted over the years to essential oils that contain mixtures of volatile compounds and have been traditionally exploited as antimicrobial remedies. Among the essential oil phytochemicals, remarkable antimicrobial and antibiotic-potentiating activities have been highlighted for cinnamaldehyde, an α,β-unsaturated aldehyde, particularly abundant in the essential oils of spp., and widely used as a food additive in industrial products. In line with this evidence, in the present study, an overview of the available literature has been carried out in order to define the bacterial sensitizing profile of cinnamaldehyde. In vitro studies displayed the ability of the substance to resensitize microbial strains to drugs and increase the efficacy of different antibiotics, especially cefotaxime, ciprofloxacin, and gentamicin; however, in vivo, and clinical trials are lacking. Based on the collected findings, cinnamaldehyde appears to be of interest as an adjuvant agent to overcome superbug infections and antibiotic resistance; however, future more in-dept studies and clinical investigations should be encouraged to clarify its efficacy and the mechanisms involved.
耐药菌的不断增加以及新型有效抗菌剂的匮乏是现代社会令人担忧的问题，这促使研究人员探索替代或辅助合成抗生素的新策略。多年来，人们对含有挥发性化合物混合物且传统上被用作抗菌药物的精油给予了极大关注。在精油植物化学物质中，肉桂醛这种α,β-不饱和醛具有显著的抗菌和抗生素增效活性，它在 spp.的精油中含量特别丰富，并在工业产品中广泛用作食品添加剂。基于这一证据，在本研究中，对现有文献进行了综述，以确定肉桂醛的细菌致敏谱。体外研究表明，该物质能够使微生物菌株对药物重新敏感，并提高不同抗生素的疗效，尤其是头孢噻肟、环丙沙星和庆大霉素；然而，缺乏体内和临床试验。根据收集到的研究结果，肉桂醛作为一种辅助剂来克服超级细菌感染和抗生素耐药性似乎具有研究价值；然而，应鼓励未来进行更深入的研究和临床调查，以阐明其疗效和相关机制。
