This book presents an overview of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), their mechanisms of antimicrobial action, other activities, and various problems that must still be overcome regarding their clinical application. Divided into four major parts, the book begins with a general overview of AMPs (Part I), and subsequently discusses the various mechanisms of antimicrobial action and methods for researching them (Part 2). It then addresses a range of activities other than antimicrobial action, such as cell penetration, antisepsis, anticancer, and immunomodulatory activities (Part 3), and explores the prospects of clinical application from various standpoints such as the selective toxicity, design, and discovery of AMPs (Part 4). A huge number of AMPs have been discovered in plants, insects, and vertebrates including humans, and constitute host defense systems against invading pathogenic microorganisms. Consequently, many attempts have been made to utilize AMPs as antibiotics. AMPs could help to solve the urgent problem of drug-resistant bacteria, and are also promising with regard to sepsis and cancer therapy. Gathering a wealth of information, this book will be a bible for all those seeking to develop antibiotics, anti-sepsis, or anticancer agents based on AMPs.

Antimicrobial Peptides (AMPs) are an organism's built-in defence molecules that have attracted extensive research attention worldwide. Covering the advances in AMP research, this volume examines technologies such as bioinformatics, combinatorial libraries, high-throughput screening, peptidomimetics, biophysics, and structural biology.

The book will provide an overview of the advancement of fundamental knowledge and applications of antimicrobial peptides in biomedical, agricultural, veterinary, food, and cosmetic products. Antimicrobial peptides stand as potentially great alternatives to current antibiotics, and most research in this newly-created area has been published in journals and other periodicals. It is the editors’ opinion that it is timely to sum up the most important achievements in the field and provide the scientific community in a reference book. The goals of this project include illustrating the achievements made so far, debating the state of the art, and drawing new perspectives.

In this text, the small team of expert authors presents the field in a comprehensive and accessible manner that is well suited for students and junior researchers. The result is a highly readable and systematically structured introduction to antimicrobial peptides, their structure, biological function and mode of action. The authors point the way towards a rational design of this potentially highly effective new class of clinical antibiotics on the brink of industrial application. They do this by discussing their design principles, target membranes and structure-activity relationships. The final part of the book describes recent successes in the application of peptides as anticancer agents.

Antimicrobial Peptides, Volume 663 in the Methods in Enzymology series, highlights new advances in the field, with this new volume presenting interesting chapters on Unifying the classification of antimicrobial peptides in the Antimicrobial Peptide Database, Optimizing peptide library creation for PepSAVI-MS (RP libraries, etc.), Discovery of novel Antimicrobial peptides using BioProspecting, Screening for cysteine-stabilized scaffolds for developing protelytic-resistant AMPs, Exploring synergy and its role in antimicrobial peptide biology, Colorimetric assays for the rapid and high-throughput screening of antimicrobial peptide activity against diverse bacterial pathogens, and much more. Other chapters cover Liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry-based analysis of naturally occurring neuropeptide diastereomers, Multiplexed Quantitative Neuropeptidomics via DiLeu Isobaric Tagging, In vitro evaluation of antibiotic resistance via proteomics, Molecular networking-based strategies in mass spectrometry, Development of Macrocyclic antimicrobial peptides and peptoids, and a host of other timely topics. Provides the authority and expertise of leading contributors from an international board of authors Presents the latest release in Methods in Enzymology serials Updated release includes the latest information on Antimicrobial Peptides

This volume compiles accepted contributions for the 2nd Edition of the Colombian Computational Biology and Bioinformatics Congress CCBCOL, after a rigorous review process in which 54 papers were accepted for publication from 119 submitted contributions. Bioinformatics and Computational Biology are areas of knowledge that have emerged due to advances that have taken place in the Biological Sciences and its integration with Information Sciences. The expansion of projects involving the study of genomes has led the way in the production of vast amounts of sequence data which needs to be organized, analyzed and stored to understand phenomena associated with living organisms related to their evolution, behavior in different ecosystems, and the development of applications that can be derived from this analysis.

Antimicrobial Peptides: Challenges and Future Perspectives covers the latest developments about antimicrobial peptides in the scenario of drug resistance. The book is divided into 16 chapters arranged in sequence and preceded by chapters on historical developments and their role as regulatory molecules in innate defense mechanism. Emphasis is given to purification techniques and characterization suitable for interdisciplinary research. Chapters provide an inventory of various antimicrobial peptides, from a diverse array of organisms such as bacteria, fungi, insects, amphibians, plants and mammals. A section on marine ecosystem broadens readers understanding on marine based antimicrobial peptides. Additional sections provide an informative overview on peptides with antiviral properties and those targeting multi-drug resistant bacteria. Recent reports and mechanism on resistance against antimicrobial peptides are also provided, along with key insights into the challenges and future perspectives of peptide drug development. Emphasizes antimicrobial peptides targeting various human viruses and multidrug resistant bacteria Written by internationally recognized experts who provide readers with a wide and useful perspective Provides in-depth resources for undertaking a research work in antimicrobial peptides with the inclusion of chapters on purification techniques and structural details Addresses the possibility and availability of peptide antibiotics in the global drug market Serves as a complete resource from the discovery to drug development of peptide antibiotics