Nanostructured polysaccharide-based carriers for antimicrobial peptide delivery

In recent decade, antimicrobial resistance is a serious international concern resulted by misuse of antibiotics. Some dangerous pathogenic strains such as Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus are resistant to the wide range of conventional antibiotics. Antimicrobial peptides (AmPs) are remarkable antibacterial drugs, which can be used instead of conventional antibiotics due to their membrane targeting activity especially against both gram-negative and gram-positive multidrug-resistant strains of pathogenic bacteria. Target delivery of AmPs is necessary because of short half-life and relative toxicity against healthy cells. Polysaccharide-based nanostructured carriers such as nanoparticles and layer-by-layer thin films are widely used due to their biocompatibility, stimuli-responsive properties, and strong affinity to bond with proteins and peptides. In this review, we focus on some prominent polysaccharide-based AmP delivery systems and describe some advantage and disadvantage of each carrier. We also introduce some novel AmP nanocarriers due to the two main strategies of combat against antibacterial resistance. Among these novel carriers, polysaccharide-based nanogels have incredible properties such as high loading capacity, stimuli responsive release behavior, simple large-scale production, and thermodynamically stability, which could be a promising candidate for controlled release of AmPs. © 2016, The Korean Society of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Technology.