Today, emerging and increasing resistance to antibiotics has become a threat to public health worldwide. Antimicrobial peptides have unique action mechanisms making them an attractive therapeutic prospect to be applied against resistant bacteria. However, the major drawback is related with their high hemolytic activity which cancels out the safety requirements for a human antibiotic. Therefore,...

Methanol, chloroform, petroleum ether and aqueous extract of Crotalaria burhia (whole plant) were investigated for their antibacterial activity against Staphylococcus aureus using cup plate agar diffusion method. The 4 extracts tested, the methanol extract presented the best results. Various investigations like physicochemical standards, preliminary phytochemical screening of the plant was carr...

With the emergence of multidrug-resistant mycobacterial strains, better therapeutic strategies are required for the successful treatment of the infection. Although antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) and silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) are becoming one of the popular antibacterial agents, their antimycobacterial potential is not fully evaluated. In this study, we synthesized biogenic-silver nanoparticle...

We have previously described the antibacterial capacity of protegrin-1 (PG-1), a cysteine-rich, cationic peptide from porcine leukocytes, against Neisseria gonorrhoeae. We now report genetic and biochemical evidence that gonococcal susceptibility to the lethal action of PG-1 and other structurally unrelated antibacterial peptides, including a peptide (LL-37) that is expressed constitutively by ...

OBJECTIVES To determine the antibacterial activity of synthetic peptides derived from the cationic antimicrobial peptide granulysin against Vibrio cholerae. METHODS The antibacterial activity of granulysin-derived peptides was assessed in vitro by microtitre and cfu assays. Toxicity against human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) was measured by propidium iodide uptake and haemolysis...

A cecropin-like peptide, papiliocin, isolated from the swallowtail butterfly Papilio xuthus, possesses high selectivity against gram-negative bacteria. Since Trp(2) and Phe(5) are highly conserved residues in cecropin-like peptides, we investigated the role of Trp(2) and Phe(5) in antibacterial activity. Substitution of Trp(2) and Phe(5) in papiliocin with Ala (papiliocin-2A and papiliocin-5A) ...

We synthesized, and purified to homogeneity, four peptides with sequences corresponding to natural dermaseptins. We compared their in-vitro antibacterial potencies against growing and non-growing Escherichia coli cells under different oxygen conditions. The dermaseptins displayed different antibacterial potencies (MICs = 1-4 microM). Killing assays showed that slowly growing bacteria were more ...

We report on the synthesis, biological function, and a plausible mode of action of a new group of lipopeptides with potent antifungal and antibacterial activities. These lipopeptides are derived from positively charged peptides containing d- and l-amino acids (diastereomers) that are palmitoylated (PA) at their N terminus. The peptides investigated have the sequence K(4)X(7)W, where X designate...

Pathogens resistant to available drug therapies are a pressing global health problem. Short, cationic peptides represent a novel class of agents that have lower rates of drug resistance than derivatives of current antibiotics. Previously, we created a software system utilizing artificial neural networks that were trained on quantitative structure-activity relationship descriptors calculated for...