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Published on: November 23, 2016
The Activity of Small Urea-γ-AApeptides Toward Gram-Positive Bacteria
Ma Su1, Yan Shi1, Minghui Wang1
1Department of Chemistry, University of South Florida, 4202 E. Fowler Avenue, Tampa, FL 33620, USA.
Abstract:
Host Defense Peptides (HDPs) have gained considerable interest due to the omnipresent threat of bacterial infection as a serious public health concern. However, development of HDPs is impeded by several drawbacks, such as poor selectivity, susceptibility to proteolytic degradation, low-to-moderate activity and requiring complex syntheses. Herein we report a class of lipo-linear α/urea-γ-AApeptides with a hybrid backbone and low molecular weight. The heterogeneous backbone not only enhances chemodiversity, but also shows effective antimicrobial activity against Gram-positive bacteria and is capable of disrupting bacterial membranes and killing bacteria rapidly. Given their low molecular weight and ease of access via facile synthesis, they could be practical antibiotic agents.
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