Title:An Approach Towards Structure Based Antimicrobial Peptide Design for Use in Development of Transgenic Plants: A Strategy for Plant Disease Management
Volume: 24
Issue: 13
Author(s): Humaira Ilyas, Aritreyee Datta and Anirban Bhunia*
Affiliation:
- Department of Biophysics, Bose Institute, P-1/12 CIT Scheme VII (M), Kolkata 700 054,India
Keywords:
Antimicrobial peptides, global food security, multi-drug resistance, plant protection, de novo designed
peptides, transgenic development.
Abstract: Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), also known as host defense peptides (HDPs), are
ubiquitous and vital components of innate defense response that present themselves as potential
candidates for drug design, and aim to control plant and animal diseases. Though their
application for plant disease management has long been studied with natural AMPs, cytotoxicity
and stability related shortcomings for the development of transgenic plants limit their
usage. Newer technologies like molecular modelling, NMR spectroscopy and combinatorial
chemistry allow screening for potent candidates and provide new avenues for the generation
of rationally designed synthetic AMPs with multiple biological functions. Such AMPs can be
used for the control of plant diseases that lead to huge yield losses of agriculturally important
crop plants, via generation of transgenic plants. Such approaches have gained significant attention
in the past decade as a consequence of increasing antibiotic resistance amongst plant
pathogens, and the shortcomings of existing strategies that include environmental contamination
and human/animal health hazards amongst others. This review summarizes the recent
trends and approaches used for employing AMPs, emphasizing on designed/modified ones,
and their applications toward agriculture and food technology.
