Designing Anti-Microbial Peptides

Escherichia coli antibiotic resistance is a severe global health problem. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) may be a potential solution. This research involved amino acid sequence optimization of a short 10-residue peptide (HKTDSFVGLM, probability 0.6325) using CAMPr3 and AlphaFold and ToxicPred3 to determine the resultant 13-residue peptide (HKRKKWWALLAKK, probability 0.8541). The resultant peptide possessed higher predicted antimicrobial activity, ability to form an amphipathic helix, and non-toxic characteristics than the original peptide, thus illustrating the validity of computational design of peptides in the pursuit of a novel therapeutic.