pharmaceutics Review Interactions with Microbial Proteins Driving the Antibacterial Activity of Flavonoids Giuliana Donadio 1,†, Francesca Mensitieri 2,†, Valentina Santoro 1, Valentina Parisi 1,3, Maria Laura Bellone 1,3, Nunziatina De Tommasi 1, Viviana Izzo 2 and Fabrizio Dal Piaz 2,* 1 Department of Pharmacy, University of Salerno, 84084 Fisciano, Italy;
[email protected] (G.D.);
[email protected] (V.S.);
[email protected] (V.P.);
[email protected] (M.L.B.);
[email protected] (N.D.T.) 2 Department of Medicine and Surgery, University of Salerno, 84082 Baronissi, Italy;
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[email protected] (V.I.) 3 PhD Program in Drug Discovery and Development, Department of Pharmacy, University of Salerno, 84084 Fisciano, Italy * Correspondence:
[email protected] † These authors contributed equally to this work. Abstract: Flavonoids are among the most abundant natural bioactive compounds produced by plants. Many different activities have been reported for these secondary metabolites against numerous cells and systems. One of the most interesting is certainly the antimicrobial, which is stimulated through various molecular mechanisms. In fact, flavonoids are effective both in directly damaging the envelope of Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria but also by acting toward specific molecular targets essential for the survival of these microorganisms. The purpose of this paper is to present an overview of the most interesting results obtained in the research focused on the study of the Citation: Donadio, G.; Mensitieri, F.; interactions between flavonoids and bacterial proteins. Despite the great structural heterogeneity Santoro, V.; Parisi, V.; Bellone, M.L.; of these plant metabolites, it is interesting to observe that many flavonoids affect the same cellular De Tommasi, N.; Izzo, V.; Dal Piaz, F.