Strategies to combat antibiotic resistance

Abstract

The increase in the antimicrobial resistance makes a great threat to the world population and has been recognized by organizations such as the United Nations and World Health Organization. One way to attack this problem is the development of new molecules for the treatment of infectious diseases. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), also known as host defense peptides, are short and generally positively charged peptides found in a wide variety of life forms from microorganisms to humans. We have designed and developed antimicrobial peptides with potent antimicrobial activity against a broad spectrum of bacteria including Staphylococcus aureusmethicillin-resistant with no adverse hemolytic activity. KW-arilated are 3 nonapeptides derivatives of fragment 107-115 of the human lysozyme and present 3 modifications with respect to the leader sequence that increased their antimicrobial activity. The arylation of the Trp was carried out on carbon 2 with a phenyl group with the aim of increasing its anchoring capacity to the bacterial membrane. This therapeutic target implies a difficult development of resistance on the part of microorganisms.