Evolution of Antimicrobial Peptides: From Self-Defense to Therapeutic Applications

Over the last century, antibiotics have been a primary treatment for infectious diseases, and indiscriminate use by both healthcare providers and patients has led to the rapid emergence of resistant pathogens. Multidrug-resistant pathogens and infective agents are an urgent threat to global health, and this issue has created a critical need for the investigation of alternatives to conventional antibiotics. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) have emerged as promising alternative therapeutics, with studies on their mechanisms and applications an area of intense interest in agricultural science, physiology, and medicine. AMPS are naturally occurring components of the host defense system, and functional throughout all orders of life, from prokaryotes to eukaryotes. They are potent molecules with broad spectrum activities against infectious agents, including bacteria, fungi, viruses, and parasites. AMPs have demonstrated therapeutic potential against non-infectious diseases like chronic inflammation and cancer, and have been found to have potential activities against slow-growing bacteria, such as biofilms. This book summarizes the current available research on AMPs, including discovery, screening, and characterization, for therapeutic applications. It discusses molecular biology, proteomics, genomics, and bioinformatics approaches. In addition, it covers AMP classification and evolutionary studies, from prokaryotes to eukaryotes.