Title:Computer Aided Design of Non-toxic Antibacterial Peptides
Volume: 18
Issue: 13
Author(s): Paola Rondon-Villarreal*Efrain Pinzon-Reyes
Affiliation:
- Medicine Department, Molecular Biology and Biotechnology Lab, Masira Research Center, Universidad de Santander, Bucaramanga,Colombia
Keywords:
Antibacterial peptides, Antibiotic resistance, Computer-aided design, Molecular docking, Mutations, Physicochemical
properties, Amino acid sequences.
Abstract: Antimicrobial resistance is increasing at an alarming rate and the number of new antibiotics
developed and approved has decreased in the last decades, basically for economic and regulatory obstacles.
Pathogenic bacteria that are resistant to multiple or all available antibiotics are isolated frequently.
Hence, new antibacterial agents are urgently needed and antimicrobial peptides are being considered as
a potential solution to this important threat. These molecules are small host defense proteins that are part
of the immune systems of most living organisms such as plants, bacteria, invertebrates, vertebrates, and
mammals. These peptides are found in those parts of organisms that are exposed to pathogens and they
are active against multiple organisms such as virus, bacteria, and parasites, among others. This review
shows different strategies in the computational design of new antibacterial peptides, the physicochemical
properties that are considered as the most relevant for the antibacterial activity and toxicity, and it
suggests guidelines in order to help in the finding of new non-toxic antibacterial peptides through the
development of computational models.