Buforins: A Potential Antimicrobial Peptide Explored With Its Anticancer Efficacy‐A Review

ABSTRACT Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), derived from numerous life forms, is being recognised as favourable contenders in today's era to overcome the multi drug resistance of cancer cells. Despite of their diverse structural orientations (β‐sheet, α‐helical, loop and extended peptides), they are immensely involved in immune defences and potentially involved for combating cancers and other types of infections via cellular membrane depolarization. Buforins (Bf), the histone H2A derived AMPs along with their analogues (like Bf‐I, Bf‐II and Bf‐IIb) demonstrated substantial anticancer efficacy despite of numerous challenges. They are quite effective in controlling the apoptosis in various cancer cell lines like breast, HeLa, ovarian, lung, liver and prostate cancers. Bf conjugated with bioconjugates were explored for enhancing the bioavailability, drug resistance and stability of these super giants in cancer therapy. The functionalized nanoparticles could possibly help to overwhelm the shortcomings of AMPs, towards cancer therapy. However, the success of in vivo approach may lead to the clinical translation of such therapeutics. In this review, we emphasized on the characteristic features, mechanisms of action, numerous anticancer approaches of Bf. Further discussion was continued with the challenges and their overcoming, advancement and future directions of Bf towards their success in chemotherapy.