Article
Biophysics
Emanuelle D. Freitas, Rogerio A. Rataglioli, Josephine Oshodi, Marisa M. Beppu
Summary: The coronavirus pandemic has highlighted the importance of bioactive materials in mitigating viral infections. Bioinspired antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) have emerged as suitable building blocks for antimicrobial coatings due to their versatile design and environmentally friendly features. This review discusses the advances and opportunities in using AMPs to create virucidal coatings, including the fundamental characteristics of peptide structure, advances in coating medical devices, and the role of different materials in designing antiviral coatings.
COLLOIDS AND SURFACES B-BIOINTERFACES
(2022)
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Mira Glibowicka, Shelley He, Charles M. Deber
Summary: This study focuses on the design and validation of analogs of cationic antimicrobial peptides (CAPs) with enhanced stability and potential clinical applications. The shortened Lys chains and cyclization were found to improve the stability of the peptides and increase their potential as antimicrobial agents.
BIOCHEMICAL AND BIOPHYSICAL RESEARCH COMMUNICATIONS
(2022)
Review
Chemistry, Medicinal
Jose Maria Garcia-Beltran, Marta Arizcun, Elena Chaves-Pozo
Summary: Aquaculture production is increasing, but infectious diseases pose a threat. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) from photosynthetic marine organisms have potential as alternatives to antibiotics in aquaculture due to their defense mechanisms and additional activities. This study reviews the knowledge about AMPs from photosynthetic marine organisms and evaluates their suitability for aquaculture.
Article
Biochemical Research Methods
Henghui Fan, Wenhui Yan, Lihua Wang, Jie Liu, Yannan Bin, Junfeng Xia
Summary: In the postgenomic era, it is important to quickly identify the functions of therapeutic peptides generated in large numbers. Predicting accurate multi-functional therapeutic peptides (MFTP) is a challenge. This study proposes a novel multi-label method called ETFC, which utilizes a deep learning-based model architecture and an imbalanced learning strategy with a multi-label focal dice loss function. Experimental results show that ETFC outperforms existing methods for MFTP prediction. Teacher-student-based knowledge distillation is used to obtain attention weights from self-attention mechanism and quantify their contributions to investigated activities in MFTP prediction.
Review
Virology
Mahe Jabeen, Payel Biswas, Md Touhidul Islam, Rajesh Paul
Summary: The transmission of pathogens through contact with contaminated surfaces is a significant route for the spread of infections, including the recent outbreak of COVID-19. Disinfection and sanitization are commonly used methods, but they have limitations such as antibiotic resistance and viral mutation. Peptides have been studied as a potential alternative due to their ability to interact with microorganisms and their applications in drug delivery and immunomodulation. This study focuses on antiviral coating strategies and their applications in personal protective equipment, healthcare devices, textiles, and public surfaces.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Maria Rosa Loffredo, Filippo Savini, Sara Bobone, Bruno Casciaro, Henrik Franzyk, Maria Luisa Mangoni, Lorenzo Stella
Summary: The activity of many antibiotics depends on the initial cell density used in bacterial growth inhibition assays, with a significant inoculum effect observed for higher cell densities. Antimicrobial peptides perturb cell membranes and the inoculum effect can impact their bacterial killing ability. Routine evaluation of the dependence of antimicrobial peptides and peptidomimetics on inoculum density should be considered.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
(2021)
Review
Infectious Diseases
Waqas Ali, Ahmad Elsahn, Darren S. J. Ting, Harminder S. Dua, Imran Mohammed
Summary: One of the major challenges in the medical community today is the increasing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) coupled with the reduction in available antimicrobial treatments. The overuse of antibiotics has led to a significant rise in AMR, with estimates suggesting over 10 million lives could be lost by 2050. Host Defence Peptides (HDPs) have shown promise as an alternative to traditional antibiotics, demonstrating efficacy against currently resistant microbial variants. In light of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the potential use of HDPs as a therapeutic option and preventive measure against the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 variant has been examined.
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Marco Campanile, Rosario Oliva, Pompea Del Vecchio, Roland Winter, Luigi Petraccone
Summary: LL-III, a natural anticancer peptide, has been found to bind to G-quadruplex structures with high affinity, which are known to be important targets in anticancer treatment.
CHEMICAL COMMUNICATIONS
(2023)
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Michal Ostrowka, Anna Duda-Madej, Filip Pietluch, Pawel Mackiewicz, Przemyslaw Gagat
Summary: Lactoferrin, an iron-binding glycoprotein, has multiple functions including antimicrobial, antiviral, antifungal, anticancer, antioxidant, and immunomodulatory activities. This study generated three novel human lactoferrin fragments, which were predicted to have antimicrobial activity. However, none of the new fragments showed antimicrobial properties, except for hLF 1-11, which was lethal against Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MOLECULAR SCIENCES
(2023)
Review
Pharmacology & Pharmacy
Francesco Scavello, Mohamed Amiche, Jean-Eric Ghia
Summary: Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are a group of molecules with antimicrobial activity produced by living organisms, which can serve as alternatives to traditional antibiotics. Some AMPs also exhibit multifunctionality, including modulation of inflammation and anticancer activity.
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Przemyslaw Gagat, Anna Duda-Madej, Michal Ostrowka, Filip Pietluch, Alicja Seniuk, Pawel Mackiewicz, Michal Burdukiewicz
Summary: This study investigated the antimicrobial properties of a group of potentially antimicrobial short amyloids. Results showed that four tested amyloids formed aggregates but did not exhibit antimicrobial or cytotoxic properties. These findings are important for training the next-generation antimicrobial peptide prediction models.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MOLECULAR SCIENCES
(2023)
Article
Engineering, Biomedical
Hui Shao, Jin Zhou, Xiaoqian Lin, Yue Zhou, Yumeng Xue, Weili Hong, Xubo Lin, Xiaoling Jia, Yubo Fan
Summary: Developing new antimicrobial agents to combat drug-resistant pathogens and biofilms is an urgent task. Cationic antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) have potential due to their unique membrane rupture mechanism, but their high toxicity and low stability limit their application. In this study, a biomimetic strategy was used to construct cationic peptide-conjugated liposomes, inspired by cell-penetrating peptides (CPPs), to enhance antibacterial efficacy and biosafety. Computational simulation and experimental investigations identified the optimal peptide-conjugated liposomes, which showed enhanced antibacterial efficacy without compromising cytotoxicity. This bio-inspired design could contribute to the development of next-generation antimicrobials.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Zoltan Radai, Johanna Kiss, Nikoletta A. Nagy
Summary: Testing showed that most tools exhibit significant variation in performance across different invertebrate groups, providing guidance on selecting the best-performing prediction tool for each taxa.
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
(2021)
Article
Chemistry, Medicinal
Florian Umstaetter, Julia Werner, Leah Zerlin, Eric Muehlberg, Christian Kleist, Karel D. Klika, Tobias Hertlein, Barbro Beijer, Cornelius Domhan, Stefan Zimmermann, Knut Ohlsen, Uwe Haberkorn, Walter Mier, Philipp Uhl
Summary: As multidrug-resistant bacteria pose a serious threat, it is crucial to rethink antibiotic use and development. In this study, highly active polycationic peptide-vancomycin conjugates were synthesized to optimize pharmacokinetics while maintaining or even increasing antimicrobial activity. Linker modification of these conjugates showed promising results in modulating pharmacokinetic behavior and providing potent antimicrobial activity.
Article
Food Science & Technology
Jose J. L. Silva, Maria R. A. de Miranda, Pedro F. N. Souza
Summary: Fungal contamination is a major cause of food spoilage, posing serious risks to human health and economic losses. This review discusses the recent advances in using synthetic peptides as agents to address foodborne fungal resistance and their applications in food preservation.
CURRENT OPINION IN FOOD SCIENCE
(2023)