Overuse of conventional antibiotics as well as the slow pace of new antibiotic drug development leads to antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Because infections with multi‐drug resistant (MDR) pathogens have become a public health issue, the need for a novel class of antibiotics is urgent. Recently, antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) have emerged as a promising platform to fight against MDR bacteria ensuring broad‐spectrum antimicrobial activity and relatively low resistance emergence. Currently, a number of AMPs are undergoing clinical and preclinical trials against various infectious diseases. This review lists the 36 AMPs (27 clinical and 9 preclinical) with brief information about their origin, structure, mechanism, and development status. From the examples of AMPs under clinical investigation, we categorized several improvement strategies and highlighted directions for the future design of AMPs.
Human hands are highly versatile. Even though they are primarily made of materials with high water content, they exhibit a high load capacity. However, existing hydrogel grippers do not possess...
Achieving strong adhesion between hydrogels and diverse materials is greatly significant for emerging technologies yet remains challenging. Existing methods using non‐covalent bonds have limited pH and ion stability, while those using covalent bonds typically lack on‐demand detachment capability, limiting their applications. In this study, a general strategy of covalent bond‐based and detachable adhesion by incorporating amine‐rich proteins in various hydrogels and inducing the interfacial crosslinking of the hydrogels using a protein‐crosslinking agent is demonstrated. The protein crosslink offers topological adhesion and can reach a strong adhesion energy of ≈750 J m−2. The chemistry of the adhesion is characterized and that the inclusion of proteins inside the hydrogels does not alter the hydrogels’ properties is shown. The adhesion remains intact after treating the adhered hydrogels with various pH solutions and ions, even at an elevated temperature. The detachment is triggered by treating proteinase solution at the bonding front, causing the digestion of proteins, thus breaking up the interfacial crosslink network. In addition, that this approach can be used to adhere hydrogels to diverse dry surfaces, including glass, elastomers and plastics, is shown. The stable chemistry of protein crosslinks opens the door for various applications in a wide range of chemical environments.
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