Frontiers in Pharmacology (Dec 2014)

Antimicrobial peptides: a new class of antimalarial drugs?

  • Nuno eVale,
  • Luísa eAguiar,
  • Paula eGomes

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fphar.2014.00275
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 5

Abstract

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A range of antimicrobial peptides (AMP) exhibit activity on malaria parasites, Plasmodium spp, in their blood or mosquito stages, or both. These peptides include a diverse array of both natural and synthetic molecules varying greatly in size, charge, hydrophobicity and secondary structure features. Along with an overview of relevant literature reports regarding AMP that display antiplasmodial activity, this review makes a few considerations about those molecules as a potential new class of antimalarial drugs.

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