Animal Venom Pharmacological Resources: Exploiting Bioactive Peptides to Target Multi-Drug-Resistant Bacteria

The escalating rise of multi-drug-resistant (MDR) bacterial strains significantly threatens global health, creating a "silent pandemic" prompted by natural selection, gene mutation, and horizontal gene transfer. This crisis is worsened by the deficit in the development of new treatments, necessitating the innovative discovery of new potent antibacterial agents.

This review examines animal venom, a complex mixture of an evolutionary array of bioactive molecules, as an important emergent source of broad-spectrum antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), creating potential drug templates for next-generation therapeutics.

We highlight numerous identified AMPs from various venomous taxa, including scorpions, snakes, spiders, frogs, bees, and wasps, characterized by their bactericidal activity against both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. They exhibit diverse mechanisms of action, characterized by rapid membrane disruption models, biofilm inhibition, bacterial enzyme dysregulation, immunomodulatory effects, and the control of intracellular targets. These bioresources serve as a structural base for the development of analogs with enhanced potency, higher selectivity, and less systemic toxicity. We also discuss repurposing strategies applied to the native AMPs, the potential application of nanoparticle technologies and the usage of computational methods.

These advanced approaches accelerate the examination of large databases to optimize structure-function characteristics, providing a roadmap for the development of future potential antimicrobial treatments derived from the rich reservoir of animal venom bioactive molecules.