Antimicrobial Peptides - Discovery, Structure, Function, and Application

Dear Colleagues,

The emergence of multidrug-resistant bacteria (MDR) has become a global health crisis, affecting our ability to treat infectious diseases and leading to increasing morbidity and mortality. New treatment options are therefore urgently needed to eradicate MDR bacteria. Among them, antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are emerging as promising antibiotic agents due to their remarkable broad-spectrum antibacterial properties and lower probability of bacterial resistance development. To date, more than 3000 AMPs have been discovered from nature, and many more chemically modified synthetic peptides with improved biological activities have been developed. Nevertheless, the successful translational applications of AMPs are very limited. On the one hand, our incomplete understanding of how these peptides work hinders their development into therapeutics. On the other hand, the relatively high production costs, short half-life, low bioavailability, and potential toxic side effects of AMPs compared to conventional small molecule drugs make them less attractive to study through the established drug discovery pipeline. Addressing these challenges requires a deeper understanding of AMPs and innovative techniques to discover and design potent AMPs that are relevant to clinical applications.

In this Special Issue, we aim to collect and disseminate the latest experimental and computational works on the discovery and characterization of AMPs, in terms of their structures, functions and potential applications. Manuscripts from original research and review articles are invited. Submitted manuscripts will be peer-reviewed to ensure high quality of contributions in this issue.

Prof. Dr. Shirley W. I. Siu
Prof. Dr. François-Xavier Campbell-Valois
Prof. Dr. Watshara Shoombuatong
Dr. Siti Azma Jusoh
Guest Editors

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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

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-anonymized 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 2900 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.