Short native α-helical cationic antimicrobial peptides: Promising alternative antibiotics

An emergence increasing evidence of antibiotic resistance in microorganisms has resulted in reduced effectiveness of available conventional antimicrobial drugs and becomes a major concern for public health worldwide. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are regarded as excellent candidates of promising alternative antibiotics owing to their higher or equal potencies and broad spectrum antimicrobial activities with less possibility of resistance induction when compared to conventional antibiotic drugs. Among AMPs, short native α-helical cationic antimicrobial peptides have been illustrated as potential antibiotic candidates because they contain small and simple structure providing the advantages for chemical modifications and structure-activity relationship studies. Interestingly, the small and simple structures are attractive and demonstrate as commercially feasible candidates for further development in therapeutic or industrial uses. Therefore, this review focused on current discovered short native -helical cationic antimicrobial peptides ( 10 amino acid residues in length) which are anoplin, temporin-H, and temporin-SHf. This review also summarized these peptides in aspect of physico-chemical properties, activities and toxicities.