As the growth in resistance to bacterial infection treatments poses a grave threat to global health in the 21st century, there is a constant need to explore novel antibacterial agents that have the ability to overcome drug resistance. Indole-containing alkaloids are widely distributed in nature, and a variety of indole-containing alkaloids have already been applied in clinical practice, proving that indole-containing alkaloids are fascinating and privileged scaffolds for the development of novel drugs. Moreover, indole-containing alkaloids could exert their antibacterial activity through the inhibition of efflux pumps, the biofilm, filamentous temperature-sensitive protein Z, and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus pyruvate kinase; so, indole-containing alkaloids constitute an important source of novel antibacterial agents. This review is an endeavor to highlight the advances in the development of indole-containing alkaloids with antibacterial potential, covering articles published in the recent 10 years.
Keywords: alkaloids; antibacterial; bisindole; indole; structure-activity relationships.
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