Antimicrobial Peptides (AMPs): Roles, Functions and Mechanism of Action

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are a crucial part of innate immunity that exist in the most of living organisms. In fact, AMPs have ability to incite the innate immune response and combat with a broad range of microbes, including bacteria, virus, parasite and fungi. Moreover, recent studies indicated that, the small cationic peptides have ability to target cancer cells and can be used as the cancer therapeutic agents. AMPs are the very tiny macromolecules, commonly in the range of 6 to 100 amino acids. During last decades with the growing antibiotic resistance, AMPs have gained considerable attention because of potential application to combat multidrug-resistant microorganisms. Therefore, herein we aimed to review the features of antibacterial peptides, including their classification, structure, source, mechanism of action and clinical application. Furthermore, problems in the production of recombinant peptides and also newest researches in the clinical developments of AMPs for treatment of crucial diseases; particularly cancers will be reviewed.