Antibacterial Peptides in Dermatology-Strategies for Evaluation of Allergic Potential

Abstract

During recent decades, the market for peptide-based drugs, including antimicrobial peptides, has vastly extended and evolved. These drugs can be useful in treatment of various types of disorders, e.g., cancer, autoimmune diseases, infections, and non-healing wounds. Although peptides are less immunogenic than other biologic therapeutics, they can still induce immune responses and cause allergies. It is important to evaluate the immunogenic and allergic potential of peptides before they are forwarded to the expensive stages of clinical trials. The process of the evaluation of immunogenicity and cytotoxicity is complicated, as in vitro models and bioinformatics tools cannot fully simulate situations in the clinic. Nevertheless, several potentially promising tests for the preclinical evaluation of peptide drugs have been implemented (e.g., cytotoxicity assays, the basophil activation test, and lymphocyte activation assays). In this review, we focus on strategies for evaluation of the allergic potential of peptide-based therapeutics.

Keywords: allergy; antimicrobial peptides; immunogenicity; peptides; toxicity.

Figure 1

Preclinical evaluation of AMPs.

Figure 2

Representative dot plots (based on our own data) showing gating strategy of basophils based on low SSC-A values and high CCR-3 expression (A); Basophils were displayed in a graph with CCR3-PE on the x-axis and CD63 FITC on the y-axis; negative control (B); cells activated with stimulating antibodies (C); cells stimulated by bacterial tripeptide-fMLP (D).