Title:Antimicrobial Peptides From Lycosidae (Sundevall, 1833) Spiders
Volume: 21
Issue: 5
Author(s): Marcella Nunes Melo-Braga, Flávia De Marco Almeida, Daniel Moreira dos Santos, Joaquim Teixeira de Avelar Júnior, Pablo Victor Mendes dos Reis and Maria Elena de Lima*
Affiliation:
- Departamento de Bioquimica e Imunologia, Instituto de Ciencias Biologicas, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, MG,Brazil
Keywords:
Lycosidae, antimicrobial peptides, AMPs, Lycosa, anticancer peptides, spiders.
Abstract: Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) have been found in all organism taxa and may play an essential
role as a host defense system. AMPs are organized in various conformations, such as linear
peptides, disulfide bond-linked peptides, backbone-linked peptides and circular peptides. AMPs apparently
act primarily on the plasma membrane, although an increasing number of works have shown that
they may also target various intracellular sites. Spider venoms are rich sources of biomolecules that
show several activities, including modulation or blockage of ion channels, anti-insect, anti-cancer,
antihypertensive and antimicrobial activities, among others. In spider venoms from the Lycosidae
family there are many linear AMPs with a wide range of activities against several microorganisms.
Due to these singular activities, some Lycosidae AMPs have been modified to improve or decrease
desirable or undesirable effects, respectively. Such modifications, especially with the aim of increasing
their antibiotic activity, have led to the filing of many patent applications. This review explores the
abundance of Lycosidae venom AMPs and some of their derivatives, and their use as new drug models.