Challenges of quaternary ammonium antimicrobial agents: Mechanisms, resistance, persistence and impacts on the microecology.

Challenges of quaternary ammonium antimicrobial agents: Mechanisms, resistance, persistence and impacts on the microecology.

Publication date: Dec 16, 2024

Quaternary ammonium compounds (QACs) served as broad spectrum antimicrobial agents are widely applied for surface disinfection, skin and mucous disinfection, and mouthwash. The daily applications of QACs have significantly increased, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the environmental residues of QACs have demonstrated harmful impacts on the environment, leading to an increase in environmental contamination, resistant microbes and disruption of microecology. The actions of QACs were related to their cationic character, which can impact the negatively charged cell membranes, but the details are still unclear. Moreover, bacteria with lower sensitivity and resistant pathogens have been detected in clinics and environments, while QACs were also reported to induce the formation of bacterial persisters. Even worse, the resistant bacteria even showed co-resistance and cross-resistance with traditional antibiotics, decreasing therapeutic effectiveness, and disrupting the microecology homeostasis. Unfortunately, the resistance and persistence mechanisms of QACs and the effects of QACs on microecology are still not clear, which even neglected during their daily usages. Therefore, we summarized and discussed current understandings on the antimicrobial actions, resistance, persistence and impacts on the microecology to highlight the challenges in the QACs applications and discuss the possible strategies for overcoming their drawbacks.

Concepts Keywords
Antibiotics Co-resistance
Environmental Cross resistance
Increased Drug resistance
Pandemic Efflux pump system
Quaternary Microecology
Persistence
Quaternary ammonium compounds

Semantics

Type Source Name
disease MESH COVID-19 pandemic
disease IDO cell
disease IDO bacteria

Original Article

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