Bacterial drug resistance is one of the most common problems of last several decades and it continues to delay the treatment of bacterial infections. Efflux pumps, which are one of the factors causing this resistance, prevent the drug from being kept inside the cell. Thus, the drug released outside the cell by the bacteria, and it cannot exhibit its activity and lead to antibiotic resistance. Although there are some efflux pump inhibitors to block the activity of these pumps, the use of currently known inhibitors is not suitable for clinical purposes, because of toxicity problems due to their chemical structure. The aim of this study is to screen in vitro efflux pump inhibitor activities of some extracts, which may be suitable for clinical use instead of using toxic synthetic inhibitors, in several Escherichia coli strains presenting multiple drug resistance and overexpressed efflux pumps. For this purpose, potential efflux pump inhibitors were extracted by using two solvents having different polarities. The results presented that all these extracts contain potential efflux pump inhibitors, which could have possible uses for blocking efflux pumps during antibiotic treatment. This experiment is a preliminary study, and it is necessary to purify and determine the active compound(s) in order to reach more detailed results about their mechanisms and to try the compounds with the combination of antibiotics to prove their potential use. Since the possibility of the use of these compounds depend on their toxicity, determining whether they are toxic or not will be a key step to continue to further studies.
Altinoz, E. (2019). Çoklu İlaç Direnci Gösteren Ve Efflux Pompa Sistemi Çalışan Escherichia coli Suşlarının Efflux Pompası İnhibitörlerine Karşı Cevaplarının Gözlenmesi. Yüksek Lisans Tezi. KastamonuÜniversitesi, Fen Bilimleri Enstitüsü, Kastamonu.
Altinoz E, Altuner EM. (2019) Antibiotic Resistance and Efflux Pumps. International Journal of Innovative Research and Reviews, 3(2): 1-9.