Design methods for antimicrobial peptides with improved performance

The recalcitrance of pathogens to traditional antibiotics has made treating and eradicating bacterial infections more difficult.In this regard,developing new antimicrobial agents to combat antibiotic-resistant strains has become a top priority.Antimicrobial peptides(AMPs),a ubiquitous class of naturally occurring compounds with broadspectrum antipathogenic activity,hold significant promise as an effective solution to the current antimicrobial resistance(AMR)crisis.Several AMPs have been identified and evaluated for their therapeutic application,with many already in the drug development pipeline.Their distinct properties,such as high target specificity,potency,and ability to bypass microbial resistance mechanisms,make AMPs a promising alternative to traditional antibiotics.Nonetheless,several challenges,such as high toxicity,lability to proteolytic degradation,low stability,poor pharmacokinetics,and high production costs,continue to hamper their clinical applicability.Therefore,recent research has focused on optimizing the properties of AMPs to improve their performance.By understanding the physicochemical properties of AMPs that correspond to their activity,such as amphipathicity,hydrophobicity,structural conformation,amino acid distribution,and composition,researchers can design AMPs with desired and improved performance.In this review,we highlight some of the key strategies used to optimize the performance of AMPs,including rational design and de novo synthesis.We also discuss the growing role of predictive computational tools,utilizing artificial intelligence and machine learning,in the design and synthesis of highly efficacious lead drug candidates.

Antimicrobial peptides: new hope in the war against multidrug resistance

The discovery of antibiotics marked a golden age in the revolution of human medicine. However,decades later, bacterial infections remain a global healthcare threat, and a return to the pre-antibiotic era seems inevitable if stringent measures are not adopted to curb the rapid emergence and spread of multidrug resistance and the indiscriminate use of antibiotics. In hospital settings, multidrug resistant(MDR) pathogens, including carbapenem-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa, vancomycin-resistant enterococci(VRE), methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus(MRSA), and extendedspectrum β-lactamases(ESBL) bearing Acinetobacter baumannii, Escherichia coli, and Klebsiella pneumoniae are amongst the most problematic due to the paucity of treatment options,increased hospital stay, and exorbitant medical costs. Antimicrobial peptides(AMPs) provide an excellent potential strategy for combating these threats. Compared to empirical antibiotics, they show low tendency to select for resistance, rapid killing action, broad-spectrum activity, and extraordinary clinical efficacy against several MDR strains. Therefore, this review highlights multidrug resistance among nosocomial bacterial pathogens and its implications and reiterates the importance of AMPs as next-generation antibiotics for combating MDR superbugs.

Purification and characterization of a novel anti-coagulant from the leech Hirudinaria manillensis

Protease inhibitors have been reported rarely from the leech Hirudinaria manillensis.In this study,we purified a novel protease inhibitor(bdellin-HM-2)with anticoagulant properties from H.manillensis.With a molecular weight of 1.4x104,bdellin-HM-2 was also characterized with three intra?molecular disulfide bridges at the N-terminus and multiple HHXDD and HXDD motifs at theC-terminus.cDNAcloning revealed that the putative nucleotide-encoding protein of bdellin-HM-2 contained 132 ami no acids and was encoded by a 399 bp open reading frame(ORF).Sequence alignment showed that bdellin-HM-2 shared similarity with the“non-classical"Kazal-type serine protease inhibitors,but had no inhibitory effect on trypsin,elastase,chymotrypsin,kallikrein,factor Xlla(FXIIa),factor Xia(FXIa),factor Xa(FXa),thrombin,or plasmin.Bdellin-HM-2 showed anticoagulant effects by proIonging the activated partial thromboplastin time(aPTT),indicating a role in enabling H.manillensis to obtain a blood meal from its host.Our results suggest that bdellin-HM丒2 may play a crucial role in blood-sucking in this leech species and may be a pote ntial can didate for the development of clinical anti-thrombotic drugs.

Antimicrobial peptide LL-37 forms complex with bacterial DNA to facilitate blood translocation of bacterial DNA and aggravate ulcerative colitis

Bacterial DNA(bacDNA) is frequently found in serum of patient with ulcerative colitis(UC) and Crohn's disease, even blood bacterial culture is negative. How bacDNA evades immune elimination and is translocated into blood remain unclear. Here, we showed that bacDNA avoids elimination and disables bacteriakilling function of antimicrobial peptide LL-37(Cramp in mice) by forming complex with LL-37, which is inducible after culture with bacteria or bacterial products. Elevated LL-37-bacDNA complex was found in plasma and lesions of patients with UC. LL-37-bacDNA promoted inflammation by inducing Th1, Th2 and Th17 differentiation and activating toll-like receptor-9(TLR9). The complex also increased paracellular permeability, which possibly combines its inflammatory effects to promote local damage and bacDNA translocation into blood. Cramp-bacDNA aggravated mouse colitis severity while interference with the complex ameliorated the disease. The study identifies that inflammatogenic bacDNA utilizes LL-37 as a vehicle for blood translocation and to evade immune elimination. Additionally, bacteria may make a milieu by releasing bacDNA to utilize and resist host antimicrobial peptides as a ‘trojan horse'.

Anticarin-β shows a promising antiosteosarcoma effect by specifically inhibiting CCT4 to impair proteostasis

Unlike healthy, non-transformed cells, the proteostasis network of cancer cells is taxed to produce proteins involved in tumor development. Cancer cells have a higher dependency on molecular chaperones to maintain proteostasis. The chaperonin T-complex protein ring complex(TRiC) contains eight paralogous subunits(CCT1-8), and assists the folding of as many as 10% of cytosolic proteome.TRiC is essential for the progression of some cancers, but the roles of TRiC subunits in osteosarcoma remain to be explored. Here, we show that CCT4/TRiC is significantly correlated in human osteosarcoma,and plays a critical role in osteosarcoma cell survival. We identify a compound anticarin-β that can specifically bind to and inhibit CCT4. Anticarin-β shows higher selectivity in cancer cells than in normal cells. Mechanistically, anticarin-β potently impedes CCT4-mediated STAT3 maturation. Anticarin-β displays remarkable antitumor efficacy in orthotopic and patient-derived xenograft models of osteosarcoma.Collectively, our data uncover a key role of CCT4 in osteosarcoma, and propose a promising treatment strategy for osteosarcoma by disrupting CCT4 and proteostasis.