Antimicrobial Peptides of Innate Immune System as a Suitable Compound for Cancer Treatment and Reduction of its Related Infectious Disease

Application of chemotherapy in cancerous children leads to reduction of immune system efficiency. Therefore, these children are prone to various infectious diseases. The excessive use of antibiotics can bring about antibiotic resistant strains. Hence, it is essential to investigate new therapies for this problem. On the other hand, the emergence of resistance against multiple drugs is a major problem in treatments of infection and cancer. Lack of selectivity and negative side effects on normal cells is another associated problem for available drugs. Antimicrobial peptides are important agents that are made by the immune system in response to pathogens. This kind of immune response exists in all animal categories from prokaryotes to humans. Different types of antimicrobial peptides have been identified and isolated from various organisms. These peptides, along with antimicrobial effects, also contain other biological activities such as anticancer, spermicidal, anti-diabetic, growth stimulant, etc. Therefore, these natural compounds can be considered as new therapeutic goals in different areas, especially for the prevention of pediatric infectious disease. Because of anticancer activity, antimicrobial peptides can be used as an effective double functional drug: anti-infective and anti-cancer drugs. There are 2851 antimicrobial peptides from six kingdoms (303 bacteriocins/peptide antibiotics from bacteria, 4 from archaea, 8 from protists, 13 from fungi, 342 from plants, and 2181 from animals) with different activities in various recorded databases and 210 peptides with anticancer/antitumor activity. Most of these peptides are still in the early stages of the study, but in the future, these compounds will have a special place in the medicine basket as the most important and effective drug. In this review, the characteristics and applications of antimicrobial peptides were investigated and their anticancer effects were focused.