Introducing the characteristics of Endolysin as an alternative to antibiotics

The emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains has become a global crisis for public health. There are many concerns about the increase of multi-drug resistant bacteria so that some diseases cannot be effectively treated. There is an urgent need to develop alternatives to conventional antibiotics for human and animal treatment. As an alternative to antibiotics, endolysins are interesting due to their high antibacterial activity and properties against numerous bacterial pathogens and in various fields of application, including medicine, food safety, and agriculture. Most phage endolysins show a wide spectrum of activity. Several features of these enzymes, including their high activity, are the presence of two catalytic domains in their structure, which further reduces the possibility of resistance formation, also, the mechanism of action and their type of lytic activity support their further exploitation as valuable and strong antibacterial agents for the treatment of infections. In this review, the structure and mechanism of endolysin, as well as its benefits as an alternative to antibiotics, and the problems in this field are stated. Moreover, the applications and advances of endolysin have been reviewed, and the newly engineered endolysins as potential candidates have been introduced.