Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2018 Oct;7(20):e1800354.
doi: 10.1002/adhm.201800354. Epub 2018 Jun 19.

From Antimicrobial Peptides to Antimicrobial Poly(α-amino acid)s

Wei Shen  1   2 , Pan He  3 , Chunsheng Xiao  1 , Xuesi Chen  1
Affiliations
Review

From Antimicrobial Peptides to Antimicrobial Poly(α-amino acid)s

Wei Shen et al. Adv Healthc Mater. 2018 Oct.

Abstract

Conventional small-molecule antibiotics are facing a significant challenge of the rapidly developed drug resistance of pathogens. In contrast, antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), an important component for innate host defenses, are now under intensive investigation as a promising antimicrobial agent for combating drug resistant pathogens. Most AMPs can effectively kill a broad spectrum of pathogens via physical disruption of microbial cellular membranes, which is identified to be difficult to develop resistance. However, the clinical applications of AMPs are still greatly limited by several inherent impediments, such as high cost of production, potential hemolysis or toxicity, and liability to proteinase degradation. Recently, cationic poly(α-amino acid)s with structures mimicking the AMPs are found to have excellent antimicrobial activity. These polymers, termed "antimicrobial poly(α-amino acid)s (APAAs)," have some advantages over AMPs, such as easy production and modification, prolonged antimicrobial activity, low cytotoxicity, and enhanced stability to protease degradation. Here, a brief introduction of mechanisms and affecting factors of microbial killing by AMPs is first presented, followed by a systematic illustration of recent advances in design and preparation of biomimetic APAAs and a perspective in this field.

Keywords: antibiotics; antimicrobial peptides; antimicrobial polymers; drug resistance; poly(α-amino acid)s; polypeptides.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

Publication types

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources