Antimicrobial peptides as a potent therapeutic regimen to quench biofilm-mediated antimicrobial resistance

Foreground for the search and development of newer classes of antiinfective agents is almost due to the inevitable antimicrobial resistance development by clinically important pathogenic organisms. For decades, the pharmaceutical industry has been fighting this challenge by modifying already existing antibiotics and developing new classes of antibiotics. However, such modifications of prevailing antibiotics appear to be insufficient to stabilize the current therapeutic demand. This medical urgency to develop alternative drug molecules against rapidly evolving microbial system has driven researchers to identify new strategies as a replacement for prevailing antibiotics. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are one among the few emerging classes of alternative therapeutic strategy which have been identified from a diverse range of organisms including prokaryotes to eukaryotes. AMPs which are naturally produced as a part of host defense mechanism share a number of similar features yet their sequences, structures, biological activities, and mode of actions differ considerably. AMPs have been shown to exert a broad-spectrum antimicrobial activity against a diverse range of pathogens including drug-resistant organisms. Besides antimicrobial activity, AMPs are well known to exhibit immunomodulatory and antibiofilm activities. All these diverse functionalities of AMPs have prompted tremendous research interest in understanding the activity and potential of AMPs as a new class of antibiotics. In the past decade, AMPs have engendered considerable attention as a potential therapeutic molecule to specifically kill pathogens and target biofilm formation. Though peptide research is progressing day by day, their potential and practical application in the present-day clinical settings remains challenging. Nevertheless, antimicrobial and antibiofilm peptides represent a novel and exciting approach to the treatment of recalcitrant microbial infections.