Natural Antimicrobial Agents

By Roopali Gupta

The recent research is now concentrated towards the discovery and development of novel chemical structures which can provide a broad-spectrum antimicrobial properties. The major problems in this area are growing resistance to existing antibacterial agents and the dearth of good antimicrobial/antifungal agents.

A major part of this research is putting all the efforts to make the best use of natural products and resources. A lot of natural antimicrobial agents can be derived from Cloves, Oregano, Thyme, and Paprika. However, the research has to be done in such a way that a proper balance is maintained between screening for inhibitors of rationally chosen targets (in which significantly useful inhibitors are not yet discovered) and screening more comprehensively so that we can have a better understanding of these compounds’ mode of action.

The efficiency of these natural compounds was tested in the terms of removing the bio films developed by various pathogens. These biofilms are the major problem at food manufacturing sites and quite difficult to remove. In initial studies, a lot of antimicrobial ingredients found in a variety of plants proved to be very useful to prevent the formation of difficult to remove bio films of pathogens.

These Bio films are made up of a variety of bacteria and generally accumulated on the surface to form a bacterial community that exists as a slime-like matrix biofilm. Cumulatively all these colonies of pathogens from a rough surface skin that resists conventional commercial washing and sanitizing methods and lead to food contamination and spoilage.

In origin, these types of films are often polymicrobial, harbouring multiple versions of infectious, disease-causing bacteria, such as Salmonella and E. Coli. Different natural antimicrobial agents derived from sources such as cloves, oregano, thyme, and paprika are used to create new compounds to reduce/restrict the formation of bacterial bio films on food surfaces and packaging.

In different researchers, these natural substances have proved to be having general antimicrobial activities against many different kinds of microorganisms.  Therefore the polymers into which these natural substances have the potential to affect a much broader spectrum of microorganisms than organism-specific drugs. In brief, the main advantage of this approach was the ability of the materials to deal with the diversity of the polymicrobial biofilms (a characteristic which makes them difficult to defeat).

Another unique advantage of using food-based antimicrobial agents is the gradual and controlled release of the antimicrobial chemicals. This aspect would offer great advantages in the food industry, providing protection over an increased time and extending the shelf-life of the product.

Besides this products will attract the consumers more as compared to the products containing the synthetic chemical additives (which are generally used to protect against contamination and spoilage) due to the usage of natural antimicrobial agents.

Consumers will also get the following benefits by choosing the products with natural preservatives:

1.   They can be assured that they are eating foods that are safer throughout the claimed shelf life.

2.   They will not be increasing the body’s synthetic chemical load

3.   They will not help in increasing the antibiotic resistance of body.

4.   As an additional perk, some natural antimicrobial agents will also bring some of the flavours and aromas from their plant sources and will also help in enhancing the overall food flavour.

Besides this, Different Bacteriocins can also be used as antibacterial or antimicrobial agents. Bacteriocins are antibacterial proteins produced by bacteria that kill or inhibit the growth of other bacteria For example Many lactic acid bacteria (LAB) produce a high diversity of different bacteriocins. Though these bacteriocins are produced by LAB found in numerous fermented and non-fermented foods, Nisin is currently the only bacteriocin widely used as a food preservative in various food processing industries.

Some of the bacteriocins have been identified and characterized completely (biochemically as well as genetically) and the researchers have the basic understanding of their structure-function, biosynthesis, and mode of action. However, some aspects of these compounds are still unknown.

About author

Roopali Gupta is a postgraduate food technologist and has 8 years of experience in different food/healthcare industries. Her strength areas are New Product Development and Quality Assurance. Currently, she is working as Merchandiser: Consumables in Dollar General Global Sourcing

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