Peptides, development antimicrobial agents

Bacterial resistance to conventional antibiotics has become a serious problem in infection control, and has led to intensive research efforts to develop an effective novel antimicrobial agent. Antimicrobial peptides have already played a crucial role in pharmaceutical research as biomedically useful agents or as lead compounds for drug development. More specifically, cyclic peptides have shown some potential as a possible new class of... 

The multiple functions of peptides in foods (antioxidants, antimicrobial agents, surfactants) and their role in the development of characteristic flavors (sweetness, bitterness), as well as the information they can provide about the genuineness of foods, make peptide analysis a necessity. Producers as well as government laboratories have considerable interest in the study of peptides, both for research purposes and for the control of raw materials and manufactured foods. For this reason, substantial attention is now being focused on the development of analytical techniques designed to separate, characterize, and quantify peptides. 

In retrospect, neither of these important antimicrobial agents could have been developed if Lilly did not have a fully integrated natural products discovery group that included scientists dedicated to bioconversions of natural products and medicinal chemists dedicated to modifying complex cyclic peptides and other secondary metabolites. This may be a lesson learned to help guide antibiotic discovery and development in the 21st century. 

In recent years, peptoid research has focused on the development of new peptoid-based antimicrobial agents either from de novo design [20-24], cyclic peptoids [25], libraries [26,27], or by transforming naturally occurring antimicrobial peptides into peptoid analogs [28]. 

The development and derivation of new antibacterial agents have been based on antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) because of their potential ability to overcome antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains. 

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