Title : Synthetic antimicrobial peptides as potent therapeutic agents
Abstract:
Among the fungal genera, members of the genus Candida are most common causal organisms of human infections. In recent years, increasing drug resistance in fungal pathogenic strains specifically, clinical strains require immediate attention to develop alternative antifungal agents. Candida albicans is one of the most important fungal pathogen among the various Candida spp. It usually resides as a commensal in the genitourinary and gastrointestinal tracts, and also occur as oral and conjunctival flora (Naglik et. al., 2011) causing both superficial and invasive infections under immunocompromised condition. Superficial infections are known as candidiasis that affects mucous membranes or skin and usually treated with topical antifungal drugs with low successes rate. However, invasive fungal infections are reported recently to be life-threatening due to inefficient prognostic methods and unsuitable antifungal therapies. Only three classes of conventional antifungal drugs viz., fluconazole, caspofungin and amphotericin B are used extensively for candidiasis treatment (Lum et al., 2016). However, there are Candida strains which have been reported to be increasing resistant to these antibiotics (Eksi et al., 2013). Moreover, occurrence of Candida in mixed biofilms with bacteria resulting in increased virulence and antibiotic resistance (Trejo-Hernandez et al., 2014; Fox et al., 2014; Baindara et al., 2009). This increased occurrence of drug resistant candidiasis desperately requires alternative antifungal agents to overcome the resistance problem. Though few peptides such as melittin and protegrin exhibit potent antifungal activity, they also possess toxic effects on mammalian cells (Lum et al., 2015). Hence, synthetic peptide designing is need of the hour. (Wang et al., 2022; Barman et al., 2023). Synthetic peptide display enhanced antimicrobial activity, reduced cytotoxicity and resistance to protease enzymes (Kang et al., 2022). Synthetic short peptides display better permeability to cross the yeast membrane. Considering this fact we designed short antifungal peptide were using sequences from APD database. Antifungal potential of designed peptides was predicted in terms of protein binding potential, amphipathicity, hydrophobicity, hydrophilicity and net charge. In vitro synthetic peptides showed potent anticandidal activity against various test strains.
Audience Take Away Notes:
- The lecture will help to researchers to understand the concept of peptide designing
- This research can help other faculty could to expand their research or teaching
- This research provides a practical solution to a problem that could help in overcoming antimicrobial resistance problem
