Smart tools for antimicrobial peptides expression and application: the elastic perspective

Laura Colomina-Alfaro, Silvia Marchesan, Artemis Stamboulis, Antonella Bandiera*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

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Abstract

In recent years, antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) have become a promising alternative to the use of conventional and chemically synthesized antibiotics, especially after the emergence of multidrug-resistant organisms. Thus, this review aims to provide an updated overview of the state-of-the-art for producing antimicrobial peptides fused or conjugated with the elastin-like (ELP) peculiar carriers, and that are mostly intended for biomedical application. The elastin-like biopolymers are thermosensitive proteins with unique properties. Due to the flexibility of their modular structure, their features can be tuned and customized to improve the production of the antimicrobial domain while reducing their toxic effects on the host cells. Both fields of research faced a huge rise in interest in the last decade, as witnessed by the increasing number of publications on these topics, and several recombinant fusion proteins made of these two domains have been already described but they still present a limited variability. Here in, the approaches described to recombinantly fuse and chemically conjugate diverse AMPs with ELPs are reviewed, and the nature of the AMPs and the ELPs used, as well as the main features of the expression and production systems are summarized. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)323-332
Number of pages10
JournalBiotechnology and Bioengineering
Volume120
Issue number2
Early online date8 Nov 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Feb 2023

Bibliographical note

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Keywords

  • Antimicrobial peptides
  • Conjugation
  • Elastin-like polypeptides
  • Recombinant expression

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