Antimicrobial lipopeptides: Multifaceted designs to curb antimicrobial resistance

Since the beginning of the 20th century, antibiotics have served as the cornerstone of modern medicine and acted as a “magic bullet” to cure the otherwise deadly infections. Nonetheless, from the onset of widespread use of penicillin in clinics emerged the threatening incidence of resistance in pathogens concomitantly. The endless conflict between discovery of newer antibiotics and emergence of microbial resistance is still in the offing with the surfacing of alarming reports on resistance development against all classes of antimicrobial therapeutics. This crisis in global health care has necessitated the advancement in search of newer alternatives, and among them, antimicrobial lipopeptide is one of the candidate leading the quest. With a brief introduction to the field, in this chapter, we have discussed about the naturally occurring lipopeptide antibiotics and their diverse structural classification. Next, we have presented a discussion on the meticulous aspect of chemical modification of existing lipopeptides to ameliorate resistance by introducing subsequent “generations” of the drug retaining antimicrobial activity with superior properties. Later, an overview on various synthetic antimicrobial lipopeptides is also conferred. Finally, we have discussed several challenges faced in this relatively new field with an insight into the prospective future routes.