Antimicrobial peptides: new hope in the war against multidrug resistance.

Content Provider	Europe PMC
Author	Mwangi, James Hao, Xue Lai, Ren Zhang, Zhi-Ye
Copyright Year	2019
Abstract	The discovery of antibiotics marked a golden age in the revolution of human medicine. However, decades later, bacterial infections remain a global healthcare threat, and a return to the pre-antibiotic era seems inevitable if stringent measures are not adopted to curb the rapid emergence and spread of multidrug resistance and the indiscriminate use of antibiotics. In hospital settings, multidrug resistant (MDR) pathogens, including carbapenem-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa, vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE), methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), and extended-spectrum β-lactamases (ESBL) bearing Acinetobacter baumannii, Escherichia coli, and Klebsiella pneumoniae are amongst the most problematic due to the paucity of treatment options, increased hospital stay, and exorbitant medical costs. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) provide an excellent potential strategy for combating these threats. Compared to empirical antibiotics, they show low tendency to select for resistance, rapid killing action, broad-spectrum activity, and extraordinary clinical efficacy against several MDR strains. Therefore, this review highlights multidrug resistance among nosocomial bacterial pathogens and its implications and reiterates the importance of AMPs as next-generation antibiotics for combating MDR superbugs.
Related Links	https://europepmc.org/backend/ptpmcrender.fcgi?accid=PMC6822926&blobtype=pdf
ISSN	20958137
Journal	Zoological Research [Zool Res]
Volume Number	40
DOI	10.24272/j.issn.2095-8137.2019.062
PubMed Central reference number	PMC6822926
Issue Number	6
PubMed reference number	31592585
Language	English
Publisher	Science Press
Publisher Date	2019-11-01
Publisher Place	16 Donghuangchenggen Beijie, Beijing 100717, China
Access Restriction	Open
Rights License	This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Editorial Office of Zoological Research, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Subject Keyword	Multidrug resistance Nosocomial infections Antimicrobial peptide Antibiotic alternatives
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Ecology Animal Science and Zoology Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics Nature and Landscape Conservation