Microalgae-factories as potential antimicrobial agents: a comprehensive review

One of the major concerns affecting the public health is microbial pathogens. Commercial antibiotics have a wide range of applications, however harmful microorganisms have increased their resistance to antibiotics, making the fight against these pathogens difficult. For many years, scientists have focused on finding natural sources with strong antimicrobial activity. At this point, microalgae cells have attracted great attention due to their biological activities including, antibacterial, antifungal, and antiviral effects. In order to discover promising strains with strong antimicrobial activity and to obtain interested components efficiently, a thorough scientific approach is needed by considering all steps of the process. This process mainly consisted of strain selection, cultivation, harvesting of biomass, extraction and purification of compounds and screening their antimicrobial properties. Using microalgal compounds against microbial pathogens is still in its early days. In this context, the present review aims to contribute existing database of antimicrobial potential of microalgae. With this aim, the impact of microalgae species and their components were investigated according to their bioactivities against bacteria, fungi, and viruses. The crucial points in this regard were emphasized and important suggestions were presented for further researches. Graphical abstract