The Role of Essential Oils in the Inhibition of Efflux Pumps and Reversion of Bacterial Resistance to Antimicrobials

Due to the deaths from infections caused by multidrug-resistant microorganisms worldwide, the World Health Organization considers antibiotic resistance to be a critical global public health problem. Bacterial resistance mechanisms are diverse and can be acquired through the overexpression of transmembrane proteins that are called efflux pumps, which act by expelling drugs from the intracellular environment, thereby preventing their action and contributing to the severity of infections. Efflux pumps are one of the main mechanisms of bacterial resistance, and it is important to identify new molecules that are capable of inhibiting the action of efflux pumps and circumvent the problem of resistance linked to the expression of these transmembrane proteins. The plants are promising candidates for obtaining biologically active substances, such as essential oils, with antimicrobial activity and inhibitors of efflux pumps, which can help in the resensitization of bacterial strains resistant to antibiotics. Therefore, this review aims to present the recently reported inhibitory activity of essential oils against bacterial pathogens that produce efflux pumps.