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How to combat gram-negative bacteria using antimicrobial peptides: A challenge or an unattainable goal?

Barreto-Santamaría, Adriana; Arevalo-Pinzon, Gabriela; Patarroyo, Manuel-Alfonso; Patarroyo, Manuel-Elkin (2021)

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) represent a promising and effective alternative for combating pathogens, having some advantages compared to conventional antibiotics. However, AMPs must also contend with complex and specialised ...
Noninvasive vaccination against infectious diseases

Zheng, Zhichao; Diaz Arévalo, Diana; Guan, Hongbing; Zeng, Mingtao (2018)

The development of a successful vaccine, which should elicit a combination of humoral and cellular responses to control or prevent infections, is the first step in protecting against infectious diseases. A vaccine may ...
Plasmodium falciparum pre-erythrocytic stage vaccine development

Molina Franky, Jessica; Cuy Chaparro, Laura; Camargo, Anny; Reyes, César; Gómez, Marcela; Salamanca, David Ricardo; Patarroyo, Manuel Alfonso; Patarroyo, Manuel Elkin (2020)

Worldwide strategies between 2010 and 2017 aimed at controlling malarial parasites (mainly Plasmodium falciparum) led to a reduction of just 18% regarding disease incidence rates. Many biologically-derived anti-malarial ...

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How to combat gram-negative bacteria using antimicrobial peptides: A challenge or an unattainable goal?
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Barreto-Santamaría, Adriana | 2021

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) represent a promising and effective alternative for combating pathogens, having some advantages compared to conventional antibiotics. However, AMPs must also contend with complex and specialised Gram-negative bacteria envelops. The variety of lipopolysaccharide and phospholipid composition in Gram-negative bacteria strains and species are decisive characteristics regarding their susceptibility or resistance to AMPs. Such biological and structural barriers have created delays in tuning AMPs to deal with Gram-negative bacteria. This becomes even more acute because little is known about the interaction AMP–Gram-negative bacteria and/or AMPs’ physicochemical characteristics, which could lead to obtaining selective molecules against Gram-negative bacteria. As a consequence, available AMPs usually have highly associated haemolytic and/or cytotoxic activity. Only one AMP has so far been FDA approved and another two are currently in clinical trials against Gram-negative bacteria. Such a pessimistic panorama suggests that efforts should be concentrated on the search for new molecules, designs and strategies for combating infection caused by this type of microorganism. This review has therefore been aimed at describing the currently available AMPs for combating Gram-negative bacteria, exploring the characteristics of these bacteria’s cell envelop hampering the development of new AMPs, and offers a perspective regarding the challenges for designing new AMPs against Gram-negative bacteria

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Noninvasive vaccination against infectious diseases
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Zheng, Zhichao | 2018

The development of a successful vaccine, which should elicit a combination of humoral and cellular responses to control or prevent infections, is the first step in protecting against infectious diseases. A vaccine may protect against bacterial, fungal, parasitic, or viral infections in animal models, but to be effective in humans there are some issues that should be considered, such as the adjuvant, the route of vaccination, and the antigen-carrier system. While almost all licensed vaccines are injected such that inoculation is by far the most commonly used method, injection has several potential disadvantages, including pain, cross contamination, needlestick injury, under- or overdosing, and increased cost. It is also problematic for patients from rural areas of developing countries, who must travel to a hospital for vaccine administration. Noninvasive immunizations, including oral, intranasal, and transcutaneous administration of vaccines, can reduce or eliminate pain, reduce the cost of vaccinations, and increase their safety. Several preclinical and clinical studies as well as experience with licensed vaccines have demonstrated that noninvasive vaccine immunization activates cellular and humoral immunity, which protect against pathogen infections. Here we review the development of noninvasive immunization with vaccines based on live attenuated virus, recombinant adenovirus, inactivated virus, viral subunits, virus-like particles, DNA, RNA, and antigen expression in rice in preclinical and clinical studies. We predict that noninvasive vaccine administration will be more widely applied in the clinic in the near future.

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Plasmodium falciparum pre-erythrocytic stage vaccine development
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Molina Franky, Jessica | 2020

Worldwide strategies between 2010 and 2017 aimed at controlling malarial parasites (mainly Plasmodium falciparum) led to a reduction of just 18% regarding disease incidence rates. Many biologically-derived anti-malarial vaccine candidates have been developed to date; this has involved using many experimental animals, an immense amount of work and the investment of millions of dollars. This review provides an overview of the current state and the main results of clinical trials for sporozoite-targeting vaccines (i.e. the parasite stage infecting the liver) carried out by research groups in areas having variable malaria transmission rates. However, none has led to promising results regarding the effective control of the disease, thereby making it necessary to complement such efforts at finding/introducing new vaccine candidates by adopting a multi-epitope, multi-stage approach, based on minimal subunits of the main sporozoite proteins involved in the invasion of the liver.

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