ABSTRACT
Natural antimicrobials constitute an interesting source of compounds applicable to food for increasing shelf-life and food safety. However, it is often not fully understood how the antimicrobials interact with cellular components to exert their mechanism of inhibition or inactivation. Knowing how antimicrobials interact with individual cell components helps in describing possible factors leading to cell inactivation, inhibition, or survival. This chapter describes in detail how natural antimicrobials interact with and disturb different cellular components of bacteria, fungi, and spores. This is followed by a section dedicated to providing an overview of possible experimental techniques together with a guide to identifying the mechanism of action of antimicrobials using a defined set of experiments. Finally, possible resistance and stress-adaptation mechanisms are described.
