Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) have been studied for three decades, and yet a molecular understanding of their mechanism of action is still lacking. Here we summarize current knowledge for both synthetic vesicle experiments and microbe experiments, with a focus on comparisons between the two. Microbial experiments are done at peptide to lipid ratios that are at least 4 orders of magnitude higher...

BACKGROUND hGlyrichin is a novel human antimicrobial peptide rich in glycine. The previous study of known human antimicrobial peptides indicated that in an eligible range, the greater corresponding antibacterial activity was consisted with the shorter peptide sequence. FINDINGS Two peptides named pCM19 and pCM12 were synthesized and the antibacterial activity assay results showed that these p...

Observations of real-time changes in living cells have contributed much to the field of cellular biology. The ability to image whole, living cells with nanometre resolution on a timescale that is relevant to dynamic cellular processes has so far been elusive. Here, we investigate the kinetics of individual bacterial cell death using a novel high-speed atomic force microscope optimized for imagi...

Here we show that keratinocytes in psoriatic lesional skin express increased Toll-like receptor (TLR) 9 that similarly localizes with elevated expression of the cathelicidin antimicrobial peptide LL-37. In culture, normal human keratinocytes exposed to LL-37 increased TLR9 expression. Furthermore, when keratinocytes were exposed to LL-37 and subsequently treated with TLR9 ligands, such as CpG o...

Insects respond to microbial infection by the rapid and transient expression of several genes encoding potent antimicrobial peptides. Herein we demonstrate that this antimicrobial response of Drosophila is not aspecific but can discriminate between various classes of microorganisms. We first observe that the genes encoding antibacterial and antifungal peptides are differentially expressed after...

1 Chronic Disease Program, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada 2 Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology and Immunology, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada 3 Nutrition Research Division, Health Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada 4 Atlantic Food and Horticulture Centre, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Kentville, Nova Scotia, Canada 5 Department of Medicine, Uni...

Leishmaniases, which are important causes of morbidity and mortality in humans and dogs, are extremely difficult to treat. Antimicrobial peptides are rarely used as alternative treatments for naturally acquired parasitic diseases. Here we report that the acylated synthetic antimicrobial peptide Oct-CA(1-7)M(2-9) is safe and effective for treating naturally acquired canine leishmaniasis.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 Experimental evolution of resistance Q1 to an antimicrobial peptide Gabriel G. Perron, Michael Zasloff 2 and Graham Bell* Department of Biology, Mc Gill University, 1205 Ave Dr P...

The antimicrobial peptide maculatin 1.1 (M1.1) is an amphipathic α-helix that permeabilizes lipid bilayers. In coarse-grained molecular dynamics (CG MD) simulations, M1.1 has previously been shown to form membrane-spanning aggregates in DPPC bilayers. In this study, a simple multiscale methodology has been applied to allow sampling of important regions of the free energy surface at higher resol...