Zeitschrift für Proteomik und Bioinformatik
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Elucidating Novel Bacterial Targets and Designing Unusual Antimicrobial Peptides: Two Faces of the Same Proteomic Coin

Octávio L. Franco

Antibiotics are essential compounds used for the control of bacterial infectious diseases. Resistance to antibiotics has become a worldwide public health problem. Therefore, effective therapy in treating resistant bacteria is essential and, to accomplish this, a comprehensive understanding of mechanisms that trigger drug resistance must be sought. The development of novel pharmacies, here focused on antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), has also been a remarkable challenge. To fill the manifold gaps that remain in clarifying bacterial resistance as well in the discovery of novel peptides with antimicrobial properties, proteomic tools have been pioneeringly used. In this context, this review focuses on novel proteomics techniques, on novel bacterial targets that could be used for drug design and on multiple AMPs found in different organisms. Moreover, the many difficulties and pitfalls in this field are also addressed, to shed some light on the two faces of the same proteomic coin.