Complex epidemiological situation,
nosocomial infections, microbial contamination, and
infection risks in hospital and
dental equipment have led to an ever-growing need for prevention of microbial
infection in these various areas. Macromolecular systems, due to their properties, allow one to efficiently use them in various fields, including the creation of
polymers with the antimicrobial activity. In the past decade, the intensive development of a large class of antimicrobial macromolecular systems,
polymers, and copolymers, either quaternized or functionalized with bioactive groups, has been continued, and they have been successfully used as
biocides. Various permanent microbicidal surfaces with non-leaching
polymer antimicrobial coatings have been designed. Along with these trends, new moderately hydrophobic
polymer structures have been synthesized and studied, which contain protonated primary or secondary/tertiary
amine groups that exhibited rather high antimicrobial activity, often unlike their quaternary analogues. This mini-review briefly highlights and summarizes the results of studies during the past decade and especially in recent years, which concern the mechanism of action of different antimicrobial
polymers and non-leaching microbicidal surfaces, and factors influencing their activity and toxicity, as well as major applications of antimicrobial
polymers.