Biofilms containing Candida albicans are responsible for a wide variety of clinical infections. The protective effects of the biofilm matrix, the low metabolic activity of microorganisms within a biofilm and their high mutation rate, significantly enhance the resistance of biofilms to conventional antimicrobial treatments. Peptoids are peptide‐mimics that share many features of host defence antimicrobial peptides but have increased resistance to proteases and therefore have better stability in vivo. The activity of a library of peptoids was tested against monospecies and polymicrobial bacterial/fungal biofilms. Selected peptoids showed significant bactericidal and fungicidal activity against the polymicrobial biofilms. This coupled with low cytotoxicity suggests that peptoids could offer a new option for the treatment of clinically relevant polymicrobial infections.

The cytoxicity profiling of a series of linear peptoids against mammalian cell lines has been carried out and correlated against both antibacterial properties and hydrophobicity.

Peptoids, a class of peptide mimetics, have emerged as promising anti-infective agents against a range of bacterial infections. Herein we present the first study of the antiparasitic and specifically the anti-leishmanial properties of linear peptoids. Peptoids were identified as having promising activity against Leishmania mexicana axenic amastigotes, a causative agent of cutaneous leishmaniasis.

Natural product antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) have been proposed as promising agents against the Leishmania species, insect vector borne protozoan parasites causing the neglected tropical disease leishmaniasis. However, recent studies have shown that the mammalian pathogenic amastigote form of L. mexicana, a causative agent of cutaneous leishmaniasis, is resistant to the amphibian-derived temporin family of AMPs when compared to the insect stage promastigote form. The mode of resistance is unknown, however the insect and mammalian stages of Leishmania possess radically different cell surface coats, with amastigotes displaying low (or zero) quantities of lipophosphoglycan (LPG) and proteophosphoglycan (PPG), macromolecules which form thick a glycocalyx in promastigotes. It has been predicted that negatively charged LPG and PPG influence the sensitivity/resistance of promastigote forms to cationic temporins. Using LPG and PPG mutant L. mexicana, and an extended range of temporins, in this study we demonstrated that whilst LPG has little role, PPG is a major factor in promastigote sensitivity to the temporin family of AMPs, possibly due to the conferred anionic charge. Therefore, the lack of PPG seen on the surface of pathogenic amastigote L. mexicana may be implicated in their resistance to these peptides.

Most plasma membranes comprise a large number of different molecules including lipids and proteins. In the standard fluid mosaic model, the membrane function is effected by proteins whereas lipids are largely passive and serve solely in the membrane cohesion. Here we show, using supported 1,2-dioleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine lipid bilayers in different saline solutions, that ions can locally induce ordering of the lipid molecules within the otherwise fluid bilayer when the latter is supported. This nanoordering exhibits a characteristic length scale of ∼20 nm, and manifests itself clearly when mechanical stress is applied to the membrane. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) measurements in aqueous solutions containing NaCl, KCl, CaCl2, and Tris buffer show that the magnitude of the effect is strongly ion-specific, with Ca2+ and Tris, respectively, promoting and reducing stress-induced nanotexturing of the membrane. The AFM results are complemented by fluorescence recovery after photobleaching experiments, which reveal an inverse correlation between the tendency for molecular nanoordering and the diffusion coefficient within the bilayer. Control AFM experiments on other lipids and at different temperatures support the hypothesis that the nanotexturing is induced by reversible, localized gel-like solidification of the membrane. These results suggest that supported fluid phospholipid bilayers are not homogenous at the nanoscale, but specific ions are able to locally alter molecular organization and mobility, and spatially modulate the membrane’s properties on a length scale of ∼20 nm. To illustrate this point, AFM was used to follow the adsorption of the membrane-penetrating antimicrobial peptide Temporin L in different solutions. The results confirm that the peptides do not absorb randomly, but follow the ion-induced spatial modulation of the membrane. Our results suggest that ionic effects have a significant impact for passively modulating the local properties of biological membranes, when in contact with a support such as the cytoskeleton.

A practical synthetic procedure to synthesise linear and cyclic peptoids containing both arginine- and lysine-type residues within the same sequence has been developed. The methodology utilises orthogonal N-Boc and N-Dde protection, pyrazole-1-carboxamide as a guanidinylation reagent and is compatible with the sub-monomer method.

Peptoids with promising activity against intracellularLeishmania mexicanaamastigotes have been identified.

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