Antimicrobial peptides treatment

Mader IS, Hoskin DW (2006) Cationic antimicrobial peptides as novel cytotoxic agents for cancer treatment. Expert Opin Investig Drugs 15 933 946... 

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are currently among the promising agents for the treatments of infection. They are the main components of innate immunity and... 

An example of a simple CZE method for peptide analysis and characterization is the one developed for protegrin IB-367.37 IB-367 is a peptide containing 17 amino acid residues that possess antimicrobial properties, and it is being developed for treatment of oral mucositis associated with aggressive cancer chemotherapy as well as other topical applications. This polycationic product was chemically synthesized using solid-phase and purified by preparative reversed-phase HPLC. IB-367 is rich in cysteine and arginine residues. 

The antimicrobial and cytotoxic activities described here for the peptide toxins from plants make them interesting compounds in the search for the treatment of diseases in humans. 

Recently, marine fish-derived bioactive peptides have been shown to possess many physiological functions including antihypertensive, antioxidant, antimicrobial, antiproliferative, antitumor, anticoagulant, and immunomodulatory activities. Among these, antihypertensive peptides act as ACE inhibitors are of particular interest for prevention and treatment of hypertension (Kobayashi et ah, 2008). 

Synthetic combinatorial chemistry approaches have created a vast new source of molecular diversity for the potential identification of lead compounds. This revolutionary field enables hundreds to thousands of times more compounds to be synthesized and screened in shorter periods of time relative to traditional approaches. In particular, novel antibacterials and/or antifungals as well as inhibitory peptides of either HIV proteases or HIV integrase proteins13 were identified following the screening of synthetic combinatorial libraries (SCLs). As described below, SCLs have been used by this laboratory to develop antimicrobial and antifungal compounds, as well as novel treatments for HIV infection. 

Some other peptides, e.g., dipeptidyl peptidase IV (8), endopeptidase 3.4.24.16 inhibitor (9), and a copolymer of tyrosine, glutamic acid, alanine, and lysine (10), have also demonstrated immunomodulatory activity. Thus analogues of these may some day play an important role in treatment of autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. It should also be noted that a vast number of naturally derived peptides also has demonstrated antimicrobial activity toward a wide range of pathogens (11), resulting in possible templates for further optimization studies clearly demonstrating the potential importance of peptides as pharmacological tools. 

Several peptides have been studied with antimicrobial and antifungal properties for BBB delivery to avoid infections. Cholesterol-conjugated G3R6TAT (CG3R6TAT) cationic nanoparticles exhibited strong antimicrobial activities against various types of microbes in vitro. This peptide contains the TAT sequence. The prepared nanoparticles were investigated for treatment... 

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