Small Molecules in Antimicrobial and Anti-quorum Sensing Drug Discovery: Experimental and Computational Approaches

Dear Colleagues,

Small molecules (SMs) include various biological molecules with low molecular weight such as glucose, amino acids, fatty acids, and plant secondary metabolites (alkaloids, glycosides, and phenols). Small molecules can also be newly synthetized in the laboratory. In fact, small molecules are a promising candidate to improve human health through the development of new medicine. Small molecules can interact with various proteins involved in different human diseases pathways. Many methods (computational and biochemical) are used to investigate the interactions of SMs with target proteins as a main step in drug discovery. Due to the increase in the isolation of multidrug resistant microorganisms, there is an urgent need to discover new small molecules with a large spectrum of antimicrobial activity. Most pathogenic microorganisms grow in biofilm and communicate between each other via chemical signal molecules. The bacteria in biofilms are more resistant to chemical agents, including antimicrobial drugs. Hence, there is an urgent need to discover new small molecules able to interact with the quorum sensing system and to decrease the production of their virulence related properties.

Within this broad context, this Special Issue welcomes original research and review articles focusing on the biological study of natural and synthetized small molecules combining both experimental and computational approaches.

Dr. Mejdi Snoussi
Dr. Emira Noumi
Guest Editors

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