Development, Bioactivity, and Application of New Antimicrobial Peptides

Dear Colleagues,

Antimicrobial peptides, also known as host defense peptides, are small-molecule active peptides that are important components of the natural immunity. They are widely present in biological organisms such as insects, animals, and microorganisms and exhibit strong, rapid, and broad-spectrum antimicrobial activity against a range of pathogens, including Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites. Most antimicrobial peptides have both positive charge and hydrophobicity. They typically utilize electrostatic interactions between positive charge and anionic bacterial cell membranes to attract each other and use hydrophobicity to insert into the interior of bacterial cell membranes, disrupting their integrity and exerting antibacterial effects. Compared to antibiotics that act on a single and specific molecular target, antimicrobial peptides have multiple mechanisms of action, including membrane action, which can effectively combat drug-resistant bacteria without obvious resistance. In addition, the surface of bacterial cell membranes contains a large number of substances such as phospholipids and lipopolysaccharides, which are negatively charged, while mammalian cell membranes contain a large number of cholesterols and sphingolipids, which are electrically neutral. Therefore, the cationic antimicrobial peptides are more inclined to interact with bacteria. In addition, antimicrobial peptides have conformational characteristics and are prone to undergo conformational changes on bacterial cell membranes, but they are less likely to undergo conformational changes on host cell membranes, and thus, they are less likely to be toxic to host cells. Thus, antimicrobial peptides have laid a solid foundation for the development of new generation antimicrobial drugs.

Dr. Chao Zhong
Guest Editor

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• antimicrobial peptides
• antimicrobial activity
• bacterial resistance
• antimicrobial drugs
• bioactivity