Antimicrobial Peptides: Recent Insights on Biotechnological Interventions and Future Perspectives

Abstract

With the unprecedented rise of drug-resistant pathogens, particularly antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and no new antibiotics in the pipeline over the last three decades, the issue of antimicrobial resistance has emerged as a critical public health threat. Antimicrobial Peptides (AMP) have garnered interest as a viable solution to this grave issue and are being explored for their potential antimicrobial applications. Given their low bioavailability in nature, tailoring new AMPs or strategizing approaches for increasing the yield of AMPs, therefore, becomes pertinent. </P><P> The present review focuses on biotechnological interventions directed towards enhanced AMP synthesis and revisits existing genetic engineering and synthetic biology strategies for production of AMPs. This review further underscores the importance and potential applications of advanced gene editing technologies for the synthesis of novel AMPs in future.

An Update on Antimicrobial Peptides (AMPs) and Their Delivery Strategies for Wound Infections

“…Still, AMPs could be easily degraded by wound exudates. Therefore, different [176]. Such modern tools can be used to specifically target AMR bacterial strains that carry those resistant genes and re-sensitize bacteria to antibiotic treatment [177].…”

“…Though CRISPR-Cas proved to be an efficient tool to enhance AMP antimicrobial activity as antimicrobials, it is very important that the protospacer adjacent motif (PAM) sequences and Cas proteins are fully characterized [184]. In addition, the use of recombinant microbial platforms for genetically tailoring AMPs leads very often to low yield and poor quality of the final product [176].…”

An Update on Antimicrobial Peptides (AMPs) and Their Delivery Strategies for Wound Infections

“…Advanced gene engineering tools for AMP synthesis, such as Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat (CRISPR)-associated protein (CRISPR-Cas, a RNA-guided genome editing system) and Zinc-Finger Nucleases (ZNFs), are new approaches recently exploited that are still not fully understood but deserve future research and investigations [206]. Such modern tools can be used to specifically target AMR bacterial strains that carry those resistant genes and re-sensitize bacteria to antibiotic treatment [207].…”

Prokaryotic expression and purification of bioactive defension 2 from Pinus sylvestris L.

“…The AMPs as the main components of the plant's innate immune system are ubiquitous and found as host defense against pathogens and pests in diverse organisms ranging from microbes to animals [4,29]. Defensins form one of several families of plant AMPs [19,27,28].…”

“…The multifunctional properties of defensin peptides make them attractive candidates for the design of transgenic plants resistant to phytopathogenic organisms or for the development of new drugs with antimicrobial properties [7,22,28]. However, to create an integrated platform for producing the antimicrobials or for the design of transgenic plants with specified properties, it is necessary to define the relationship between the structure and function of these molecules.…”