Iranian Researchers Find New Antibiotics to Treat Infections

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are the small molecular peptides that play a crucial role in the innate immunity of the host. They are at the forefront of immune system of the host against the invasion of microorganisms.

The lack of new antibiotics for the treatment of gram-negative bacterial infections, together with the emerging problems of multidrug-resistant organisms highlights the need for new antimicrobial strategies for the treatment of such infections.

Identifying the colossal role that antimicrobial peptides play in preventing infection by microbial pathogens in many organisms, it has been found out that these peptides could lay the ground for producing a new variant of clinical antimicrobials.

Peptide HHC10-4 identified by researchers at the University of Tehran (UT)'s Biochemistry and Biophysics Research Center has antimicrobial activity, which can be used to solve some antibiotic resistance problems and treat bacterial infections.

As multidrug-resistant infections are getting more serious and many people around the world are grappling with it, it becomes necessary to study this peptide as one of the cationic antimicrobial peptides, which has a high potential to kill bacteria.

Given that the production of HHC10-4 peptide is more economical than other peptides, and that it has fewer side effects and toxicity, it becomes more relevant to study its performance.

The UT researchers said that during the research they had conducted, they found a strong impact of HHC10-4 peptide on Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria.

The researcher further noted that the hydrophobic cationic peptide targets the bacterial cell membrane, and penetrates it and leads to the death of the bacteria; therefore, the peptide can be used as an effective and affordable antibiotic.

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