Antimicrobial Peptides: A Potent Alternative to Antibiotics

Abstract

Antimicrobial peptides constitute one of the most promising alternatives to antibiotics since they could be used to treat bacterial infections, especially those caused by multidrug-resistant pathogens. Many antimicrobial peptides, with various activity spectra and mechanisms of actions, have been described. This review focuses on their use against ESKAPE bacteria, especially in biofilm treatments, their synergistic activity, and their application as prophylactic agents. Limitations and challenges restricting therapeutic applications are highlighted, and solutions for each challenge are evaluated to analyze whether antimicrobial peptides could replace antibiotics in the near future.

Disclosure of a Promising Lead to Tackle Complicated Skin and Skin Structure Infections: Antimicrobial and Antibiofilm Actions of Peptide PP4-3.1

“…While recent research has unveiled very promising HDP from either natural sources [35][36][37] or recombinant technology [38,39], most of the HDP that have been advanced over the past few years as prospective relevant players in the combat against infectious diseases are of synthetic origin. Rational design, along with chemical synthesis, offers a multiplicity of peptide-based constructs with no match in Nature, enabling a fine tuning of their pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic properties, thereby improving their fitness to reach the clinics [40][41][42]. De novo design has been delivering very promising HDP in the past couple of years such as, e.g., short amphiphilic peptides possessing the general structure K n F m K n [43] and activity against antibiotic-susceptible strains of E. coli and S. aureus (2 ≤ MIC ≤ 32 mg/mL), or a structure based on IIKK repeat units conferring selective activity against antibioticsusceptible E. coli (8 ≤ MIC ≤ 16 mg/mL) due to the ability to specifically interact with the outer membrane of this bacterium [44].…”

Progress in Alternative Strategies to Combat Antimicrobial Resistance: Focus on Antibiotics

“…Moreover, bacterial AMPs warrant "space" to the producing bacteria in the context of complex microbial communities that harbor the same ecological niches [95,[172][173][174][175]. AMPs can target a variety of bacteria, both Gram-positive and Gram-negative, through the common mechanisms of traditional antibiotics [94,170,175,176]. Once AMPs have penetrated the bacterial cell wall, they exert further antimicrobial activity by targeting protein biosynthesis, nucleic acids, and/or impairing the cell wall and membrane production [177] Extensive research on AMPs has already led to the production of so-called "designer"like molecules, i.e., synthetic peptides produced by exploitation of knowledge regarding naturally occurring AMPs.…”

The Use of Antibody-Antibiotic Conjugates to Fight Bacterial Infections

“…However, the increase of resistant pathogens has leveraged the study of innovative strategies ( Mood et al, 2021 ). As a result, the use of peptides emerged as a promising alternative ( Rima et al, 2021 ). Peptides are a broad group of molecules with different physicochemical properties and therapeutic indications.…”