Kebede Abdisa¹, Dagmawit Atalel², Gemechu Berhanu³, Venkataramana Kandi^4,

Emerging multi-drug resistant pathogens are the main driving force behind the efforts to find an alternative treatment approach such as probiotics. Probiotics are considered living drugs that can reduce the consumption of conventional antibiotics and improve human and animal health. Particularly, bacterial origin probiotics became increasingly popular during the last two decades as a result of the continuously expanding scientific evidence pointing to their beneficial effects on human and animal health. In recent years, there has been an increase in the application of probiotics for the treatment of different infectious diseases and to alleviate the symptoms of many others, including metabolic disorder-related illnesses and cancer. More specifically, diseases and ailments such as diarrhea, urogenital infections, ulcerative colitis, irritable bowel disease, and a host of others have experienced an increase in the use of certain probiotic bacteria. There are several possible mechanisms by which probiotic bacteria can inhibit the effect of other pathogenic microorganisms. This review, therefore, provides an overview of the current status of bacterial probiotics with special emphasis on therapeutic purpose, mechanisms of action, and their selection criteria. It also highlights the emerging pieces of evidence concerning the role of probiotics in health and disease, and the potential limitations and challenges of probiotic development as a novel therapeutic agent.

bacteria, drugresistance, novel therapeutics, probiotics, mechanisms of action, health, diseases