Dear Colleagues,

in the landscape of the growing emergence of drug resistance among pathogens, antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) appear as valuable candidates for the development of a new generation of therapeutic agents intended to replace or supplement conventional antimicrobial drugs.

In fact, AMPs are active against different classes of pathogens, including multidrug-resistant microorganisms, and they do not easily induce resistance, while in many cases showing little or no toxicity toward human cells. New delivery strategies and chemical structure optimization, together with improvement in chemical synthesis procedures, will possibly overcome known limitations related to pharmacokinetics and costs of production of AMPs.

To date, a plethora of natural and synthetic AMPs has been identified with the ability to exert a direct action on pathogens (i.e., killing of microorganisms or inhibition of viral replication) or to indirectly promote the resolution of the infection through immunomodulatory effects. AMPs with wound healing properties have been also described.

These AMPs present an assortment of structures ranging from helical to β-strand, mixed, or random coil, which may account for diverse mechanisms of action. Other characteristics such as charge, hydrophobicity, amphipathicity, and peptide length have been shown to be responsible for modulating the anti-infective mechanism of AMPs.

This Special Issue aims to gather contributions which may promote a better understanding of the structure–function relationship, mechanism of action, and possible biomedical applications of AMPs. Submissions on the discovery of new AMPs or novel activities of already known AMPs are also encouraged.

All submission types, including original research articles, short communications, and comprehensive reviews, are welcome.

Dr. Laura Giovati
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Antibiotics is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• antimicrobial peptides
• mechanisms of AMP
• antimicrobial activity
• antiviral activity
• host immunity modulation
• wound healing
• biomedical application