tailieunhanh - Báo cáo khoa học: Multifunctional host defense peptides: antiparasitic activities

Whereas significant knowledge is accumulating on the antibacterial and antifungal properties of host defense peptides (HDPs) and their synthetic mimics, much less is known of their activities against parasites. A variety ofin vitro andin vivo antiparasitic assays suggest that these notorious anti-microbial compounds could represent a powerful tool for the development of novel drugs to fight parasites in the vertebrate host or to complement current therapeutic strategies | ễFEBS Journal MINIREVIEW Multifunctional host defense peptides antiparasitic activities Amram Mor Department of Biotechnology Food Engineering Technion - Israellnstitute of Technology Haifa Israel Keywords antimicrobialpeptide chemical mimicry drug design drug resistance infectious disease Leishmaniasis malaria membrane active compound oligo-acyl-lysyl peptide-mimetic Correspondence A. Mor Laboratory of Antimicrobial Peptides Investigation LAPI Department of Biotechnology Food Engineering Technion - IsraelInstitute of Technology Haifa Israel Fax 972 4 829 3399 Tel 972 4 829 3340 E-mail amor@ Whereas significant knowledge is accumulating on the antibacterial and antifungal properties of host defense peptides HDPs and their synthetic mimics much less is known of their activities against parasites. A variety of in vitro and in vivo antiparasitic assays suggest that these notorious antimicrobial compounds could represent a powerful tool for the development of novel drugs to fight parasites in the vertebrate host or to complement current therapeutic strategies albeit the fact that HDPs essentially act by nonspecific mechanisms casts serious doubt on their ability to exert sufficient selectivity to be considered ideal candidates for drug development. This minireview summarizes recent efforts to assess the antiparasitic properties of HDPs and their synthetic derivatives focusing on two of the most used models - Plasmodium and Leishmania species - for antiparasitic assays against the different development stages. Received 28 April2009 revised 12 August 2009 accepted 12 August 2009 doi Introduction Human parasites are responsible for millions of deaths around the world every year. Malaria for instance is endemic in over 100 Third World countries with an estimated 400 million clinical cases correlating with 1-3 million deaths annually and over 3 billion inhabitants of tropical regions are considered to be at risk 1 . Of .