Tuberculosis (TB) is a major worldwide health problem in part due to the lack of development of new treatments and the emergence of new strains such as multidrug-resistant (MDR) and extensively drug-resistant strains that are threatening and impairing the control of this disease. In this study, the efficacy of natural and synthetic cationic antimicrobial (host defence) peptides that have been s...

Antimicrobial peptides are promising candidates for anti-infective pharmaceuticals. Unfortunately, because of their low proteolytic and chemical stability, their usage is generally narrowed down to topical formulations. Until now, numerous approaches to increase peptide stability have been proposed. One of them, peptide hydrocarbon stapling, a modification based on stabilizing peptide secondary...

Pathogens, like fungi, nematodes, virus and bacterial are responsible for several human and plant diseases. According FAO, around 20 to 40 percent of crops yields are lost, per year, due plant diseases and pest. Besides this, only USA spend 30 billion dollars a year with hospital infections, and the numbers are increasing as the infection are becoming more and more resistant to conventional ant...

Plant antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) have evolved differently from AMPs from other life forms. They are generally rich in cysteine residues which form multiple disulfides. In turn, the disulfides cross-braced plant AMPs as cystine-rich peptides to confer them with extraordinary high chemical, thermal and proteolytic stability. The cystine-rich or commonly known as cysteine-rich peptides (CRPs) o...

Molecular dynamics simulations of the magainin MG-H2 peptide interacting with a model phospholipid membrane have been used to investigate the mechanism by which antimicrobial peptides act. Multiple copies of the peptide were randomly placed in solution close to the membrane. The peptide readily bound to the membrane, and above a certain concentration, the peptide was observed to cooperatively i...

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are a diverse group of molecules that play a vital role in the innate immune response of plants and animals [1]. With an average length of thirty or so residues, AMPs often feature a net positive charge due to a high arginine, lysine and/ or histidine content. This in turn endows them with an amphiphilic character that enables them to associate with the phospholipi...

BACKGROUND Allergy is often accompanied by infections and lower levels of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs). Vitamin D has been shown to increase expression of selected AMPs. In this study we investigated whether antimicrobial peptide levels in nasal secretions of allergic asthma patients are lower than in healthy controls, and whether administration of the active form of vitamin D (1,25(OH)2D3) af...

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are important immune effector molecules for invertebrates, including echinoderms, which lack a vertebrate-type adaptive immune system. Here we summarize the knowledge of such peptides in echinoderms. Strongylocins are a novel family of cysteine-rich AMPs, recently identified in the sea urchins, Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis and S. purpuratus. Although these mol...

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are extensive group of molecules that produced by variety tissues of invertebrate, plants, and animal species which play an important role in their immunity response. AMPs have different classifications such as; biosynthetic machines, biological sources, biological functions, molecular properties, covalent bonding patterns, three dimensional structures, and molecul...

stances, contributing to the mechanisms of host defenses, has been recognized since the late nineteenth century. In 1963, the in vitro antibacterial activity of leukocyte extracts was attributed to basic proteins. Since the late 1980s, cationic peptides with antimicrobial properties have been subsequently identified in other host cells and tissues and in virtually every living species (Lehrer, ...