Contribution of Antimicrobial Peptides to the Development of New and Efficient Antimicrobial Strategies

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) represent promising candidates for the design of novel microbicidal agents, effective both on planktonic, but especially on antibiotic resistant bacteria, biofilms, and persisters. In addition to their antimicrobial activity, AMPs also possess other biological activities, such as signalling molecules, immune modulators, drug delivery vehicles, which could act synergically during the anti-infectious therapy. However, for the clinical development of peptide-based therapeutics, several challenges including low specificity, susceptibility to proteolytic degradation and half-lives, potential toxicity to animal cells, need for appropriate carriers are still to be solved. The purpose of this review is to present synthetic data concerning the structure, mechanisms of action and resistance, as well as the contribution of nanotechnology and AMPs for the development of new and efficient antimicrobial strategies.