Aromatic Plant Extracts, Essential Oils and Their Compounds in Combination with Conventional and Not Conventional Antimicrobial Agents

Dear Colleagues,

Based on World Health Organization reports, antimicrobial resistance to well-known antibiotics is a major global threat of increasing concern to human and animal health. In fact, with the wide use of synthetic and semisynthetic antimicrobial drugs, their advantages and disadvantages have been highlighted over the years, including the spread of drug-resistant pathogens, and research has focused on the use of natural products as useful antimicrobial tools.

Currently, there is evidence that plant extracts, such as essential oils, may exert remarkable biological activities against viruses, bacteria, fungi, and parasites.

In addition, to overcome microbial resistance and reduce toxicity and side effects of antimicrobial drugs, the combinations of plant extracts/compounds with conventional antibiotics can be a possible solution from a therapeutic point of view. Some combined antibiotic therapies are already clinically available.

This Special Issue aims to collect contributions, research papers, and reviews related to the use of aromatic plant extracts (obtained by steam and dry distillation, mechanical extraction, supercritical fluid extraction, ultrasound assisted maceration, etc.) and pure compounds used in association with conventional and not conventional antimicrobial agents to enhance the antimicrobial efficacy, reduce microbial resistance to single agents, the amount of synthetic compounds, and at the same time their side effects.

The extracts and pure compounds must be chemically characterized, describing also the chirality of constituents where necessary.

Prof. Dr. Vivian Tullio
Prof. Dr. Alessandra Guerrini
Dr. Domenico Cautela
Guest Editors

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