Vishal L Handa, Benedict B Vyas, Abhishek Padhi, Ashwini Agarwal, B R M Vyas
{"title":"Nanomedicine against antimicrobial resistance: mechanistic insights and next-generation therapeutic potential.","authors":"Vishal L Handa, Benedict B Vyas, Abhishek Padhi, Ashwini Agarwal, B R M Vyas","doi":"10.3389/fchem.2026.1915145","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has emerged as one of the most critical global health threats, severely limiting the effectiveness of existing therapies against bacterial, fungal, and viral infections. The increasing prevalence of multidrug-resistant pathogens is largely driven by rapid genetic evolution, which promotes multiple resistance mechanisms such as drug degradation, target-site alteration, reduced intracellular drug accumulation, and biofilm formation, leading to persistent infections and rising mortality. These challenges highlight the urgent need for alternative therapeutic strategies beyond conventional antimicrobials. Nanomedicine has gained considerable attention due to its unique physicochemical properties, enabling improved drug stability, targeted delivery, controlled release, enhanced pathogen penetration, and multimodal antimicrobial action. This review comprehensively examines resistance mechanisms across major microbial pathogens and discusses the evolution of nanomedicine as an advanced platform for combating AMR. Particular emphasis is placed on green biogenic synthesis of nanoparticles using biological resources, offering environmentally sustainable and biocompatible antimicrobial nanomaterials. The synergistic interactions between nanomaterials and conventional antimicrobial agents that enhance therapeutic efficacy and restore susceptibility in resistant pathogens. Emerging next-generation antimicrobial nanomedicine platforms, including biomimetic nanoparticles, antimicrobial peptide delivery systems, CRISPR-enabled nanocarriers, and stimuli-responsive systems, are also highlighted for their potential in precision infection management. Finally, key challenges involving toxicity, biosafety, microbiome disruption, environmental impact, manufacturing scalability, regulatory and clinical translation. Addressing these barriers will be essential for advancing safe and effective nanomedicine-based solutions against AMR.</p>","PeriodicalId":12421,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Chemistry","volume":"14 ","pages":"1915145"},"PeriodicalIF":5.3000,"publicationDate":"2026-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13617642/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Frontiers in Chemistry","FirstCategoryId":"92","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fchem.2026.1915145","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2026/1/1 0:00:00","PubModel":"eCollection","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"CHEMISTRY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has emerged as one of the most critical global health threats, severely limiting the effectiveness of existing therapies against bacterial, fungal, and viral infections. The increasing prevalence of multidrug-resistant pathogens is largely driven by rapid genetic evolution, which promotes multiple resistance mechanisms such as drug degradation, target-site alteration, reduced intracellular drug accumulation, and biofilm formation, leading to persistent infections and rising mortality. These challenges highlight the urgent need for alternative therapeutic strategies beyond conventional antimicrobials. Nanomedicine has gained considerable attention due to its unique physicochemical properties, enabling improved drug stability, targeted delivery, controlled release, enhanced pathogen penetration, and multimodal antimicrobial action. This review comprehensively examines resistance mechanisms across major microbial pathogens and discusses the evolution of nanomedicine as an advanced platform for combating AMR. Particular emphasis is placed on green biogenic synthesis of nanoparticles using biological resources, offering environmentally sustainable and biocompatible antimicrobial nanomaterials. The synergistic interactions between nanomaterials and conventional antimicrobial agents that enhance therapeutic efficacy and restore susceptibility in resistant pathogens. Emerging next-generation antimicrobial nanomedicine platforms, including biomimetic nanoparticles, antimicrobial peptide delivery systems, CRISPR-enabled nanocarriers, and stimuli-responsive systems, are also highlighted for their potential in precision infection management. Finally, key challenges involving toxicity, biosafety, microbiome disruption, environmental impact, manufacturing scalability, regulatory and clinical translation. Addressing these barriers will be essential for advancing safe and effective nanomedicine-based solutions against AMR.
期刊介绍:
Frontiers in Chemistry is a high visiblity and quality journal, publishing rigorously peer-reviewed research across the chemical sciences. Field Chief Editor Steve Suib at the University of Connecticut is supported by an outstanding Editorial Board of international researchers. This multidisciplinary open-access journal is at the forefront of disseminating and communicating scientific knowledge and impactful discoveries to academics, industry leaders and the public worldwide.
Chemistry is a branch of science that is linked to all other main fields of research. The omnipresence of Chemistry is apparent in our everyday lives from the electronic devices that we all use to communicate, to foods we eat, to our health and well-being, to the different forms of energy that we use. While there are many subtopics and specialties of Chemistry, the fundamental link in all these areas is how atoms, ions, and molecules come together and come apart in what some have come to call the “dance of life”.
All specialty sections of Frontiers in Chemistry are open-access with the goal of publishing outstanding research publications, review articles, commentaries, and ideas about various aspects of Chemistry. The past forms of publication often have specific subdisciplines, most commonly of analytical, inorganic, organic and physical chemistries, but these days those lines and boxes are quite blurry and the silos of those disciplines appear to be eroding. Chemistry is important to both fundamental and applied areas of research and manufacturing, and indeed the outlines of academic versus industrial research are also often artificial. Collaborative research across all specialty areas of Chemistry is highly encouraged and supported as we move forward. These are exciting times and the field of Chemistry is an important and significant contributor to our collective knowledge.