Antimicrobial activity testing techniques

BUTASSI, E.; RAIMONDI, M.; POSTIGO, A.; CORDISCO, E.; SORTINO, M.

Essential Oils and Nanotechnology for Treatment of Microbial Diseases

CRC Press Taylor & Francis Group

Año: 2017; p. 296 - 309

In recent years, the development of new antimicrobial drugs has become an important factor in pharmacological research due to the increase in the number of microbial infections, therapeutic failure, the development of resistant strains, and the low availability of existing drugs. Nanotechnology has emerged as a novel alternative for antimicrobial treatment with the aim of reducing toxicity and increasing the bioavailability; and consequently, the efficacy of traditional and novel drugs. The methods for the detection of antimicrobial susceptibility agents have been widely used for the discovery of new ones and can also be utilized for the evaluation of the activity of nanoparticles. CLSI and EUCAST have developed standardized protocols for some techniques such as diffusion and dilution assays, which require special modifications when evaluating nanoparticles. Several reports have demonstrated the efficacy of nanoparticles as antimicrobial drugs by using the methodologies described in this chapter.