Plant Extracts and Antimicrobials

Dear Colleagues,

Microbial pathogenicity and other infectious diseases have been controlled by the use of commercially available antimicrobial drugs in recent years. Antimicrobial drugs have, however, been overused and misused in the general population, which led to an increase in drug resistance rates among several microorganisms. Hence in recent years, antimicrobial drug resistance has been recognized as a major global health threat. Medicinal plants are an important source of pharmacologically active secondary compounds, such as coumarins, flavonoids, phenolics, alkaloids, terpenoids, tannins, lectin, polypeptides, and polyacetylenes. Numerous articles reporting on the antimicrobial activity of plant extracts are published. Industrial hemp is one of many examples; recent studies have shown that inflorescence water extract and essential oils from this plant have antifungal activity against dermatophytes (Orlando et al. 2021). In this Special Issue dedicated to “Plant Extracts and Antimicrobials”, research papers and reviews about the research on new antimicrobial plant extracts or molecules, at a laboratory scale or at a pilot level, are welcome. The alternative use of plant extracts or compounds in food, beverage, supplements, and cosmetics could also be part of this Special Issue.

Topics particularly of interest are:

• Production of plant compounds with antimicrobial properties;
• Industrial applications and scaling up;
• Methods to increase active compounds yield (e.g., bioelicitation);
• Product extraction and characterization;
• Plant tissue culture in vitro and biochemical pathways;
• Bioactivity of wild specimens versus cultivated specimens;
• In vitro and in vivo tests;
• Microbial species and strain screening.

Dr. Paola Angelini
Prof. Roberto Venanzoni
Dr. Giancarlo Angeles Flores
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Microorganisms is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.