Strategies and opportunities for engineering antifungal peptides for therapeutic applications

Antifungal peptides (AFPs) are widely described as promising prospects to treat and prevent fungal infections, though they are far less studied than their antibacterial counterparts. Although promising, AFPs have practical limitations that have hindered their use as therapeutics. Rational design and...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Current opinion in biotechnology 2023-06, Vol.81, p.102926-102926, Article 102926
Main Authors: Konakbayeva, Dinara, Karlsson, Amy J
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Antifungal Agents - chemistry
Antifungal Agents - therapeutic use
Peptides - chemistry
Peptides - therapeutic use
Protein Engineering
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Summary:Antifungal peptides (AFPs) are widely described as promising prospects to treat and prevent fungal infections, though they are far less studied than their antibacterial counterparts. Although promising, AFPs have practical limitations that have hindered their use as therapeutics. Rational design and combinatorial engineering are powerful protein engineering strategies with much potential to address the limitations of AFPs by designing peptides with improved physiochemical and biological characteristics. We examine how rational design and combinatorial engineering approaches have already been used to improve the properties of AFPs and propose key opportunities for applying these strategies to push the design and application of AFPs forward. •AFPs are promising sources of new antifungal agents.•The physiochemical and biological properties of AFPs often need to be improved.•Rational design and combinatorial engineering can be used to improve AFPs.•Many opportunities exist to apply engineering strategies to improve AFP design.
ISSN:0958-1669
1879-0429
DOI:10.1016/j.copbio.2023.102926