Membrane-disrupting
antimicrobial peptides continue to attract
increasing attention due to their potential to combat multidrug-resistant
bacteria. However, some limitations are found in the success of clinical
setting-based antimicrobial peptide agents, for instance, the poor
stability of antimicrobial peptides in vivo and their short-term activity.
Self-assembled peptide materials can improve the stability of antimicrobial
peptides, but the biosafety of peptide-based materials is the main
concern, although they are considered to be biocompatible, because
some peptide aggregates would possibly induce protein misfolding,
which could be related to amyloid-related diseases. Therefore, in
this work, we designed two peptides and constructed peptide-based
nanofibrils by self-assembly before its utilization. It is found that
the fibrils could release the antimicrobial peptide by disassembly
for microbial membrane lysis in the presence of bacteria. The designed
peptide-based fibrils presented a good and long-term antimicrobial
activity with bacterial membrane disruption and the efflux of calcium
from bacteria. Furthermore, it could be used to construct hybrid macrofilms
displaying low cytotoxicity, low hemolytic activity, and good biocompatibility.
The innovative design strategy could be beneficial for the development
of smart antimicrobial nanomaterials.
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