PROBIOTICS AND ANTIMICROBIAL PROTEINS, 2025 (SCI-Expanded)
Antibiotic resistance seriously compromises world health by affecting the effectiveness of therapies and greatly raising morbidity, death, and healthcare expenditures. Particularly in hospital environments, the rapid spread of multidrug-resistant organisms hampers the treatment of bacterial infections and challenges the efficacy of current medicines. Antibiotic resistance has multiple mechanisms: biofilm development, horizontal gene transfer, and genetic alterations. To address this developing issue, studies have focused on alternative strategies, including new antimicrobial medicines, combination treatments, and non-traditional remedies. Additionally, dietary therapies, probiotics (the live microorganisms that, when administered in adequate amounts, confer a health benefit on the host), and phytochemicals have garnered interest due to their ability to alter the gut microbiota, the complex community of microorganisms living in the digestive tracts, thus potentially limiting the dissemination of resistant bacteria. These approaches, meanwhile, have difficulties, including limits in clinical translation and the adaptation of bacterial populations. This study aims to comprehensively review the current understanding of the connections between the gut microbiome and the development of antibiotic resistance by investigating the probable underlying mechanistic effects and also highlights the possibility of targeting host-microbiome interactions as a new intervention option.