Antimicrobial Peptides Services

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are produced by a variety of organisms and their cells. As a component of innate immunity, AMP is responsible for protecting the host against the pathogens. AMPs are generally consist of 12 and 50 amino acids with a broad spectrum of antibiotic activities against bacteria, yeasts, fungi, and viruses and cytotoxic activity on cancer cells, in addition to anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory activities. For now, they are proved to exist in various organisms (bacteria, fungi, animals and plants) and thousands types of AMPs have been discovered and demonstrated. Of them, most are cationic AMPs, which play the key antimicrobial roles.

Figure 1 The three-dimensional structures of different types of antimicrobial peptides.

AMPs are the host defense peptides with most of them being the cationic (positively charged) and amphiphilic (hydrophilic and hydrophobic) α-helical peptide molecules. The membrane permeability is mostly recognized as the well-accepted mechanism to describe the action of cationic AMPs. These cationic AMPs can bind and interact with the negatively charged bacterial cell membranes, leading to the change of the electrochemical potential on bacterial cell membranes, inducing cell membrane damage and the permeation of larger molecules such as proteins, destroying cell morphology and membranes and eventually resulting in cell death.

Figure 2 Various mechanisms of action of antimicrobial peptide.

AMPs have been demonstrated to have their own advantages over the traditional antibiotics, including:

• Broad-spectrum
• Rapid activity
• Low susceptibility to resistance development
• A bactericidal effect independent of the bacterial growing state
• The ability to reduce concentrations of single drugs and thus their side effects
• Delay drug resistance evolution

Therefore, based on their antimicrobial mechanisms those are different from traditional antibiotics and their potential advantages, AMPs have garnered interest as novel therapeutic agents. Because of the rapid increase in drug-resistant pathogenic microorganisms, AMPs from synthetic and natural sources have been developed using alternative antimicrobial strategies.

However, apart from AMPs’ unparalleled advantages, they also have some limitations for clinical and commercial development. The natural AMPs are labile, depending on the surrounding environments, such as the presence of protease, pH change, and so on. In addition, other obstacles for the use of peptide antibiotics are the potential toxicity of AMPs for oral application and high cost of peptide production.

To overcome above those obstacles and satisfy the requirements for AMPs-related clinical drug development, Profacgen can offer a series of AMPs-related service, including:

• AMPs synthesis service
• AMPs activity assay service
• AMPs development
• AMPs modification and design

As one of the well-known service providers in biotechnology field, Profacgen’s analysis services utilize advanced technology and proven expertise to help customers meet their analysis needs. Our AMPs team has rich experience in the field, and can provide fully personalized AMPs’ services. Thus, please do not hesitate to contact us for more details of AMPs’ services. Our expert representatives are available 24 hours a day, to assist you.