The application and prospects of antimicrobial peptides in antiviral therapy

Abstract

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) have broad-spectrum antimicrobial activity, enabling them to rapidly detect and eliminate targets. In addition, many AMPs are natural peptides, making them promising candidates for therapeutic drugs. This review discusses the basic properties and mechanisms of action of AMPs, highlighting their ability to disrupt microbial membranes and modulate host immune responses. It also reviews the current state of research into using AMPs against various viral infections, focusing on their therapeutic potential against viruses that contribute to the global health crisis. Despite promising developments, therapies based on AMPs still face challenges such as stability, toxicity, and production costs. In this text, we will discuss these challenges and the latest technological advances aimed at overcoming them. The combination of nanotechnology and bioengineering approaches offers new ways to enhance the delivery, efficacy, and safety of AMPs. We emphasize the importance of further research to fully exploit the potential of AMPs in antiviral therapy, advocating a multifaceted approach that includes optimizing clinical use and exploring synergies with existing antiviral drugs.

Keywords: Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs); Antiviral therapy; Coronaviruses; HIV; Influenza.

Fig. 1

Main mechanism of action of AMPs for bacterial inhibition Once bound to the membrane, AMPs can form pores or translocate across the membrane to release or translocate major intracellular components, leading to bacterial cell death, modes of action include concave cylinder, ring pore, and carpet modes. Some antimicrobial peptides exert antimicrobial effects by affecting the synthesis of cell wall components and disrupting cell wall structure. Some antimicrobial peptides enter cells by direct penetration or endocytosis, and exert antimicrobial effects by targeting the nucleus, organelles, proteins present in fungi or intracellular proteins. Alternatively, they block nucleic acid synthesis, protein synthesis or enzyme activity to exert antimicrobial effects

Fig. 2

Classification of antimicrobial peptides according to function The APD3 database is a manually organized collection of 3146 AMPs from six living communities containing a total of 3940 peptides based on a set of data collection criteria

Fig. 3

Main mechanism of action of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) to inhibit viruses The mechanism of action of AMPs covers almost all stages of the entire viral life cycle: viral particle inhibition; adsorption; viral entry; endosomal escape; viral capsid deconjugation; transcription and translation of the viral genome, and release of mature viral particles