Medicinal Plants Classification Biosynthesis and ... - Index of

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Philippe N. Okusa, Caroline Stevigny and Pierre Duez
tetracycline, and vancomycin. Nerolidol and farnesol also sensitized Escherichia coli to
polymyxin B (Daugelavicius et al., 2000).
5. Conclusion
Antimicrobial medicinal plants play an important role in health care in traditional
medicine and could yield compounds important for modern medical practice. In developing
countries, where the impact of infectious diseases is particularly large, traditional healers
predominantly recourse to medicinal plants. From these medicinal plants, most often used for
millenia, many antimicrobial compounds have already been isolated and identified,
supporting thus their traditional uses. In modern medical practice, medicinal plants have a
major interest for their possible role in the fight against antibiotics bacterial resistance.
Indeed, the alarming worldwide incidence of antibiotics resistance causes an increasing need
for new compounds that can act either by a direct antimicrobial activity or by inhibiting
resistance mechanisms of microorganisms of medical importance. Compounds belonging to
several phytochemical groups and displaying an antimicrobial effect against bacteria, fungi,
viruses and parasites have been isolated from medicinal plants, promising to enrich the
arsenal of antimicrobial drugs, particularly against multi-resistant microorganisms. More
interestingly, medicinal plants provide compounds inactive by themselves, but that can
enhance or restore the activity of existing antibiotics. These compounds generally act by
inhibiting resistance mechanisms of microorganisms to antibiotics, and may permit to extend
the effective life span of currently used antibiotics or to recover antibiotics to which
microorganisms have already developed resistance. The synergistic concomitant use of
natural compounds and antibiotics can also help to reduce doses of the later in order to help
avoiding adverse side effects.
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