Advances in studying bacterial resistance to antimicrobial peptides

Abstract:

Bacteria have developed severe resistance to traditional antibiotics, demanding novel antimicrobial agents to overcome resistance. Antimicrobial peptides are promising novel antimicrobial agents. Owing to preferential attack on the cell membrane, antimicrobial peptides will not lead to widespread resistance, although their recognition of specific targets might cause genetic mutations and resistance of the targets. Additionally, some bacteria can overcome endogenous antimicrobial peptides and survive with the host cells. The corresponding defense mechanisms of bacteria also bring cross-resistance to therapeutic antimicrobial peptides. The resistance mentioned above poses a challenge to the development of antimicrobial peptides. In this review, we summarize the research progress in studying the mechanisms of antimicrobial peptides resistance, to provide the reference for developing strategies to fight bacterial resistance.

Key words:cross-resistance;host defense peptide;cell membrane;capsule;teichoic acid;lipopolysaccharide