Antimicrobial peptides with anticancer activity: Today status, trends and their computational design

Arch Biochem Biophys. 2023 Jan 1:733:109484. doi: 10.1016/j.abb.2022.109484. Epub 2022 Dec 5.

Abstract

Some antimicrobial peptides have been shown to be able to inhibit the proliferation of cancer cell lines. Various strategies for treating cancers with active peptides have been pursued. According to the reports, anticancer peptides are important therapeutic peptides, which can act through two distinct pathways: they either just create pores in the cell membrane, or they have a vital intracellular target. In this review, publications up to Sep. 2021 had extracted form Scopus and PubMed using "antimicrobial peptide" and "anticancer peptide" as keywords. In second step, "computational design" related publications extracted. Among publications, those have similar scopes were classified and selected based on mechanisms of action and application. In this review, the most recent advances in the field of antimicrobial peptides with anti-cancer activities have been summarized. Freely available webservers such as AntiCP, ACPP, iACP, iACP-GAEnsC, ACPred are discussed here. In conclusion, despite some limitations of ACPs such as production cost and challenges, short half-life and toxicity on normal cells, the beneficial properties of AMPs make some of them good therapeutic agents for cancer therapy. Towards designing novel ACPs, the computational methods have substantial position and have been used progressively, today.

Keywords: Anticancer; Antimicrobial; Cancer; Design; In silico; Peptide; Therapeutic.

Publication types

  • Review

MeSH terms

  • Anti-Infective Agents* / pharmacology
  • Anti-Infective Agents* / therapeutic use
  • Antimicrobial Peptides
  • Antineoplastic Agents* / chemistry
  • Antineoplastic Agents* / pharmacology
  • Antineoplastic Agents* / therapeutic use
  • Humans
  • Neoplasms* / drug therapy
  • Peptides / chemistry

Substances

  • Anti-Infective Agents
  • Antimicrobial Peptides
  • Antineoplastic Agents
  • Peptides