Title:Antimicrobial Peptides: An Approach to Combat Resilient Infections
VOLUME: 17 ISSUE: 4
Author(s):Debaprasad Parai*, Pia Dey and Samir K. Mukherjee
Affiliation:Department of Microbiology, University of Kalyani, Kalyani, WB, Department of Microbiology, University of Kalyani, Kalyani, WB, Department of Microbiology, University of Kalyani, Kalyani, WB
Keywords:Antimicrobial peptides, host defence, anti-infective, microbial infection, antimicrobial activity, drug development.
Abstract:
Background: It was apparent by the end of 1980s that the success against the threats of
bacterial pathogens on public health was an illusion, with the rapid development of resistant strains
more than the discovery of new drugs. As a consequence, the remedial services were in the backfoot
position of being on the losing side of this never-ending evolutionary war. The quest for new
antibiotics to overcome resistance problems has long been a top research priority for the researchers
and the pharmaceutical industry. However, the resistance problems remain unresolved due to
the abrupt misuse of antibiotics by common people, which has immensely worsened the scenario
by disseminating antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains around the world.
Objective: Thus, immediate action is needed to measure emerging and re-emerging microbial diseases
having new resistance mechanisms and to manage their rapid spread among the common
public by means of novel alternative metabolites.
Conclusion: Antimicrobial Peptides (AMPs) are short, cationic peptides evolved in a wide range
of living organisms and serve as the essential part of the host innate immunity. For humans, these
effector molecules either can directly kill the foreign microbes or modulate the host immune systems
so that the human body could develop some resistance against the microbial infections. In
this review, we discuss their history, structural classifications, modes of action, and explain their
biological roles as anti-infective agents. We also scrutinize their clinical potentiality, current limitations
in various developmental stages and strategies to overcome for their successful clinical applications.
