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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Diabetes. Nov 15, 2021; 12(11): 1832-1855
Published online Nov 15, 2021. doi: 10.4239/wjd.v12.i11.1832
Anti-diabetics and antimicrobials: Harmony of mutual interplay
Wael A H Hegazy, Azza A H Rajab, Amr S Abu Lila, Hisham A Abbas
Wael A H Hegazy, Azza A H Rajab, Hisham A Abbas, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Zagazig University, Zagzig 44519, Egypt
Amr S Abu Lila, Department of Pharmaceutics, Zagazig University, Faculty of Pharmacy, Zagzig 44519, Egypt
Amr S Abu Lila, Department of Pharmaceutics, College of Pharmacy, University of Hail, Hail 81442, Saudi Arabia
Author contributions: Hegazy WAH and Rajab AAH wrote the paper; Abu Lila AS and Abbas HA performed the collected the data.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Authors declare no conflict of interests for this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Wael A H Hegazy, PhD, Professor, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Zagazig University, Faculty of Pharmacy, Zagzig 44519, Egypt. waelmhegazy@daad-alumni.de
Received: May 3, 2021
Peer-review started: May 3, 2021
First decision: June 16, 2021
Revised: June 26, 2021
Accepted: October 25, 2021
Article in press: October 25, 2021
Published online: November 15, 2021
Processing time: 196 Days and 0.4 Hours
Abstract

Diabetes is one of the four major non-communicable diseases, and appointed by the world health organization as the seventh leading cause of death worldwide. The scientists have turned over every rock in the corners of medical sciences in order to come up with better understanding and hence more effective treatments of diabetes. The continuous research on the subject has elucidated the role of immune disorders and inflammation as definitive factors in the trajectory of diabetes, assuring that blood glucose adjustments would result in a relief in the systemic stress leading to minimizing inflammation. On a parallel basis, microbial infections usually take advantage of immunity disorders and propagate creating a pro-inflammatory environment, all of which can be reversed by antimicrobial treatment. Standing at the crossroads between diabetes, immunity and infection, we aim in this review at projecting the interplay between immunity and diabetes, shedding the light on the overlapping playgrounds for the activity of some antimicrobial and anti-diabetic agents. Furthermore, we focused on the anti-diabetic drugs that can confer antimicrobial or anti-virulence activities.

Keywords: Diabetes; Immune disorders; Anti-diabetics; Antimicrobials; Anti-virulence

Core Tip: Understanding the mutual interplay between diabetes and microbial infection is necessary to control both and to avoid a lot of serious complications that may happen in such clinical conditions. Repurposing of approved drugs and investigation of their new application represents a promising approach for maximizing treatment outcomes. In this review, we shed light on the overlapping areas of efficacy between anti-diabetics and antimicrobials.