Antimicrobial Peptides (AMPs) are an organism's built-in defence molecules that have attracted extensive research attention worldwide. Harnessing and creating them synthetically has the potential to help overcome increasing antibiotic resistance in many pathogens. In addition to covering the current advances in AMP research, this volume examines new technologies such as bioinformatics, combinatorial libraries, high-throughput screening, peptidomimetics, biophysics, and structural biology. This volume also describes new methods and strategies for AMP prediction, design, and applications that overcome obstacles in developing them into therapeutic agents.
Researchers, microbiologists, medical and industrial personnel.
Preface
Introduction
Part I: Natural Antimicrobial Peptides: Nomenclature, Classification, and Interesting Templates for Peptide Engineering
1. A Database View of Naturally Occurring Antimicrobial Peptides: Nomenclature, Classification and Amino Acid Sequence Analysis
2. Lantibiotic-related Research and the Application thereof
3. Antimicrobial Peptides in Plants
Part II: Expanding the Peptide Space: Prediction Methods, Design Strategies, and Peptidomimetics
4. Database-aided Prediction and Design of Novel Antimicrobial Peptides
5. Discovery of Novel Antimicrobial Peptides Using Combinatorial Chemistry and High-Throughput Screening
6. Chemical Mimics with Systemic Efficacy
Part III: Biophysics, Structural Biology and Mechanism of Action of Antimicrobial Peptides
7. Biophysical Analysis of Membrane-Targeting Antimicrobial Peptides: Membrane Properties and the Design of Peptides Specifically Targeting Gram-negative Bacteria
8. Non-membrane Targets of Antimicrobial Peptides: Novel Therapeutic Opportunities?
9. Structural Studies of Antimicrobial Peptides Provide Insight into Their Mechanisms of Action
Part IV: Novel Therapeutic Strategies to Bolster Host Defence
10. Lung Infection: Shifting the Equilibrium toward the Free and Active Form of Human LL-37 and the Design of Alternative Antimicrobial Agents
11. Role of Vitamin D in the Enhancement of Antimicrobial Peptide Gene Expression
12. Fine Tuning Host Responses in the Face of Infection: Emerging Roles and Clinical Applications of Host Defence Peptides
Antimicrobial Peptides (AMPs) are an organism's built-in defence molecules that have attracted extensive research attention worldwide. Harnessing and creating them synthetically has the potential to help overcome increasing antibiotic resistance in many pathogens. In addition to covering the current advances in AMP research, this volume...
Wang Dr. Guangshun Wang, trained as a chemist in China at Yangzhou University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, obtained his Ph.D. in Biophysical Chemistry from Simon Fraser University, Canada in 1997. He then did his postdoctoral stints at the Florida State University and at the National Institutes of Health, USA with a focus on structural biology of signal-transducing protein-protein complexes by NMR spectroscopy. In 2002, he joined the faculty of the University of Nebraska Medical Center (Omaha, USA). His research interests include structural, bioinformatic, and functional studies of host defense antimicrobial peptides (http://aps.unmc.edu/AP/main.html) and their potential applications that benefit human beings. Dr. Wang has published more than 50 original papers, review articles, and book chapters. He has one US patent granted and two pending. He currently serves as an editor for the Open Journal of Magnetic Resonance and sits on the editorial board of several other journals.