Mobilization of Microbiota Commensals and Their Bacteriocins for Therapeutics

With the specter of resurgence of pathogens due to the propagation of antibiotic-resistance genes, innovative antimicrobial strategies are needed. In this review, we summarize the beneficial aspects of bacteriocins, a set of miscellaneous peptide-based bacterium killers, compared with classical antibiotics, and emphasize their use in cocktails to curb the emergence of new resistance. We highlight that their prey spectrum, their molecular malleability, and their multiple modes of production might lead to specific and personalized treatments to prevent systemic disorders. Complementarily, we discuss how we might exploit prevailing bacterial commensals, such as Streptococcus salivarius, and deliberately mobilize their bacteriocin arsenal ‘on site’ to cure multiresistant infections or finely reshape the endogenous microbiota for prophylaxis purposes. The number of bacterial strains resistant to antibiotics has dramatically increased during the past decades so that some microbes are totally insensitive to current antibiotics.Small antibacterial peptides known as bacteriocins are widely used for natural intraspecies and interspecies competition and could be exploited for human needs, in medicine or agriculture.Beneficial features of bacteriocins could allow them to substitute antibiotics or foster their action and might reduce the emergence of resistant strains.Friendly bacteria of the human microbiota might be mobilized to produce bacteriocins and prevent bacterial infection at the external surface of human epithelia.