Abstract

ASSESSMENT AND EVALUATION OF METHODS USED FOR ANTIMICROBIAL ACTIVITY ASSAY: AN OVERVIEW

Rajesh Singh Tomar*, Pooja Sharma, Ajay Sharma, Raghvendra Mishra*

Abstract

The emergence of new infectious diseases, recurrence of several infections and microbial resistance encouraged researchers towards confirmatory development of effective antimicrobials with wide margin of safety using various screening protocols. The Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) methods for the assessment of antimicrobial activity are widely accepted by “regulatory authorities” worldwide. However, these methods are intended to test pure compounds such as antibiotics whereas optimization is required at extract level. The deficiency of optimized in vitro protocols for the assessment of antimicrobial activities has led to variations in results among researchers. This direct comparison of results led to false conclusions regarding the efficacy of antimicrobial agents. Several methods have been widely employed in the evaluation of antimicrobial activities of various target compounds. Many researchers have either incorporated two different methods or one single method. However, the conclusion cannot be drawn exclusively from the results obtained while employing only the preliminary antimicrobial test methods such as disc diffusion. Hence, the objective of this review article is to report various screening protocols for the determination of antimicrobial activity of both known and unknown antimicrobials.

Keywords: Antimicrobials, antibiotics, drug resistance, clinical and laboratory standards institute (CLSI) guidelines, screening protocols