2. Antimicrobial peptides.

General characteristics

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) constitute a primitive immune defense mechanism and

are found in a wide range of eukaryotic organisms, from human to plants to insects.
Most of them are gene-encoded and are mobilized shortly after microbial infection
and rapidly neutralize a broad range of microbes. Bactericidal, fungicidal, virucidal and
tumouricidal are some of the properties that this peptides exhibit. One another
interesting thing is that they potentially can overcome bacterial resistance so this
peptides might be candidates for therapeutic drugs. To date, hundreds of these
peptides have been identified, indicating their importance in the innate immune
system.

Antimicrobial peptides are typically relatively short (12 to 100 amino acids), have an
overall net positive charge (+2 to +9), and most of them are hydrophobic (is a
requirement for the membrane interaction and insertion).

These peptides can be divided into several groups based on their length, secondary or
tertiary structure, presence or absence of disulfide bridges or mode of action.

Though the exact mechanism of action of AMP’s is still an incognit, there is a

consensus that somehow theses peptides selectively disrupt the cell membranes. It’s
believed that the positive charge of the peptide bonding the negatively charged
components present on the outer membrane cell structure plays an important role in
the insertion (the disturbance of the membrane ends in the permeabilization of it).
Also there are studies which demonstrate the ability of many peptides to translocate
across the cytoplasmic membrane of bacteria, targeting DNA/RNA synthesis, protein
synthesis, enzymatic activities and cell wall regeneration (therapeutic potential of
HDP). In this case, acting more like an immunomodulatory agent, the name given to
the peptide will be as HDP instead of antimicrobial. Though, peptides can have both
properties: human peptides are likely directly antimicrobial in high concentrations and
exhibe immunomodulatory properties when found at lower concentrations.