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Antimicrobial Peptides (AMPs): Roles, Functions and Mechanism of Action

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Abstract

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are a crucial part of innate immunity that exist in the most of living organisms. In fact, AMPs have ability to incite the innate immune response and combat with a broad range of microbes, including bacteria, virus, parasite and fungi. Moreover, recent studies indicated that, the small cationic peptides have ability to target cancer cells and can be used as the cancer therapeutic agents. AMPs are the very tiny macromolecules, commonly in the range of 6 to 100 amino acids. During last decades with the growing antibiotic resistance, AMPs have gained considerable attention because of potential application to combat multidrug-resistant microorganisms. Therefore, herein we aimed to review the features of antibacterial peptides, including their classification, structure, source, mechanism of action and clinical application. Furthermore, problems in the production of recombinant peptides and also newest researches in the clinical developments of AMPs for treatment of crucial diseases; particularly cancers will be reviewed.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Molecular Medicine Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran and Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran.

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Author notes

  1. Roghayyeh Seyfi and Fatemeh Abarghooi Kahaki contributed equally to this work and should be considered as co-first authors.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Malek-Ashtar University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

    Roghayyeh Seyfi & Valiollah Babaeipour

  2. Department of Biotechnology, School of Advanced Technologies in Medicine, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

    Fatemeh Abarghooi Kahaki

  3. Department of Biotechnology Research Center, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran

    Tahereh Ebrahimi

  4. Molecular Medicine Research Center, Biomedicine Institute, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran

    Soheila Montazersaheb & Vahideh Tarhriz

  5. Biotechnology Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran

    Shirin Eyvazi

  6. Department of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran

    Vahideh Tarhriz

Authors
  1. Roghayyeh Seyfi
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  2. Fatemeh Abarghooi Kahaki
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  3. Tahereh Ebrahimi
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  4. Soheila Montazersaheb
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  6. Valiollah Babaeipour
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Contributions

The core idea of this study came from R. S., F. A. K., and V.T. They also directed the other authors and analyzed the collected papers. R. S., F. A. K., T. E., S. E., S. M., V. B., and V. T. wrote the manuscript in collaboration with V. B. and V. T.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Valiollah Babaeipour or Vahideh Tarhriz.

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Seyfi, R., Kahaki, F.A., Ebrahimi, T. et al. Antimicrobial Peptides (AMPs): Roles, Functions and Mechanism of Action. Int J Pept Res Ther 26, 1451–1463 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10989-019-09946-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10989-019-09946-9

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