| dc.description.abstract | The rapidly growing rates of antimicrobial resistance represent a great challenge
not just in human, but in veterinary medicine, as well. The restriction of antibiotic usage and the increasing spread of resistance made preventing and treating
bacterial infections increasingly difficult. Therefore, research into compounds that
can be used as substitutes for antibiotics is of particular importance. Antimicrobial
Peptides (AMPs), also known as Host Defense Peptides (HDPs) can be considered
promising candidates in this respect. They are small, typically cationic peptides
of up to 100 amino acids, have a diverse structure and are produced in almost all
living organisms as part of innate immunity.
In this review article, the authors describe the direct antibacterial activity of
AMPs, which is based on their cationic and amphipathic structures. They are able
to bind to the mostly negatively charged bacterial membrane and produce pores
with several different mechanisms. The disrupted permeability is often enough
to kill the microbe; however, AMPs can also bind to several intracellular targets,
such as the DNA, and they can inhibit protein or nucleic acid synthesis. Moreover,
the authors explain the extensive immunomodulatory activity of these peptides,
which enables them to recruit and activate immune cells, modulate cytokine
and chemokine release, promote wound healing and angiogenesis, and decrease
harmful inflammatory processes. Nowadays attention tends to shift to these
latter as higher AMP concentrations are needed to achieve a direct antibacterial
effect in vivo because of the high level of salts and glycosaminoglycans. In contrast, they can provide effective protection against infectious agents and harmful
inflammatory processes through their indirect immunomodulatory effects even
at lower concentrations. It is therefore essential to conduct research on AMPs as
alternative agents against bacterial infections to determine which therapeutic
candidates will be most applicable and useful in the future. | en_US |
