About this Research Topic

Background

The long-term use of antibiotics accelerated the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria (ARB). Around a total 300 million deaths are predicted to be caused by ARB until 2050 at a rate of annual 10 million deaths, which is an urgent signal for us to pay a high attention to antibiotic resistance. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are small peptides widespread in living organisms as part of host innate immune response to infection. AMPs are currently evaluated as an alternative to antibiotics, since they present potent activity to eliminate external microbial harm and mediate the immune response of host. However, their toxicity, instability, low yield obtained by recombinant expression and high cost of chemical synthesis are the key limitations for their application.

This Research Topic aims to cover new discoveries and potential solutions to the drawbacks mentioned above: from innovative ideas and approaches to research execution. For example, toxicity of AMPs could be decreased by balancing the charge and hydrophobicity, while their stability was increased by nanoencapsulation, and can be further enhanced by their controlled release with a higher utilization efficiency. Further, the yield of AMPs has been increased thanks to applied bioinformatics and genome modification/engineering techniques.

The Research Topic editors welcome authors to publish state-of-the-art research focusing on the following themes:

• Molecular design of antimicrobial peptides to enhance antimicrobial activity and reduce cytotoxicity;
• Engineered modification (such as PEGylation, amidation and nanoencapsulation) to improve the stability of antimicrobial peptides;
• Molecular mechanisms of AMPs that show high internalization efficiency and low natural resistance to pathogens;
• Novel expression systems suitable for AMPs yielding or the modification/optimization of “high yield elements”.

Keywords: Antimicrobial peptide, Stability, Cytotoxicity, Internalization mechanism, Expression system

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