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Research and Reviews: A Journal of Pharmaceutical Science Review Article

Plant-Derived Antimicrobials as Next-Generation Solutions to Multidrug Resistance

  1. Rohit Kumar Faculty of Pharmaceutical Science, Mewar University, Gangrar, Chittorgarh
  2. Shraddha Pareek Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Science, Mewar University, Gangrar, Chittorgarh
  3. Tanya Sharma Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Science, Mewar University, Gangrar, Chittorgarh
  4. Kamalesh Mistry Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Science, Mewar University, Gangrar, Chittorgarh

Abstract

The steady rise of multidrug-resistant (MDR) pathogens is reshaping how clinicians, researchers, and policymakers think about infection control. When bacteria acquire the ability to survive exposure to three or more antibiotic classes at once—whether through efflux pumps, enzyme-mediated drug destruction, target modifications, or reduced membrane permeability—treatment options narrow dramatically, hospital stays lengthen, and mortality climbs. Conventional pharmaceutical pipelines have struggled to keep pace with this biological arms race, pushing the scientific community to look beyond synthetic chemistry for novel solutions. Plants have evolved rich arsenals of bioactive secondary metabolites over hundreds of millions of years of co-evolution with microbial pathogens. Alkaloids such as berberine, flavonoids such as epigallocatechin gallate, terpenoids such as thymol and carvacrol, tannins, saponins, and quinone derivatives each offer mechanistic approaches that differ fundamentally from those of conventional antibiotics—disrupting microbial membranes, blocking efflux machinery, interfering with quorum-sensing communication, and inhibiting resistance enzymes. When intelligently combined with existing drugs, many of these compounds restore sensitivity in isolates that had previously been classified as untreatable.

Keywords

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