Marine Bioactive Compounds, An Alternative to Antibiotics

Abstract

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) remains as a critical concern of modern medicine today. Medical practitioners face difficulty in treating various microbial-associated ailments as a consequence of acquired antibiotic resistance and evolution of pathogens. Therefore, requisite to alternate antibiotics or alternatives to antibiotics becomes a necessity. Oceanic realm remains to be the repository of several bioactive compounds with pronounced biological activities. There remains aplenty of compounds isolated with antibacterial, antiviral, anticancer, antirheumatic, anti-inflammatory, and anticoagulant and numerous other properties. Owing to its structural diversity, marine environments offer scope to identify unique compounds with potential biological functionality. In this section, the exploitation of marine organisms for the isolation of potential antimicrobials, its characteristics, chemistry, and mode of action are briefly described. The chapter aims to induce insights to researchers and scientists to formulate novel drugs by exploring these potential compounds that undoubtedly act as alternate antibiotics or alternate to antibiotics and nutraceutical compounds with potential antimicrobial activities.