Biosurfactants as potential and sustainable substitutes for synthetic drugs against antimicrobial resistance and drug adverse effects: a review

In modern medicine, one major advancement recorded is the discovery of antibiotics. For the past decades now, the use and misuse of antibiotics have led most clinically important pathogens to develop multiple drug resistance; thus, reducing the applications of these antibiotics. The challenges associated with multi-drug resistance require various strategies such as genomics and nanotechnology approaches, and these will require detailed studies on each antibiotic and response to identify the specific nature of the pathogens. The current SAR CoV-2 known as the COVID-19 pandemic, even if it is not related to this situation, has shown the emergence desire for strategies to fight such increasing public threats. New ways of studying innate compounds that have suitable effects to mitigate this problem have been extended. In recent times, there has been a dramatically increased interest in the production of biosurfactants for food processing, environmental bioremediation, improved oil recovery, and biomedical and pharmaceutical applications. Biosurfactants can produce different biological activities including antibacterial, anticancer, antiviral, antifungal, haemolytic effects, and fibrin clotting inhibition. They had shown the capacity to destroy plasma membranes, improve cell membrane permeability, and eliminate metabolites. Thus, this review discusses the mechanisms of action, roles, applications, and available commercial products of biosurfactants focusing majorly on therapeutic and pharmaceutical perspectives. With their diversity, potential, and cost-effectiveness in the biomedical field, biosurfactants can be sourced as alternative molecules to synthetic drugs.