Natural antimicrobial peptide complexes in the fighting of antibiotic resistant biofilms: Calliphora vicina medicinal maggots.

ABSTRACT: Biofilms, sedimented microbial communities embedded in a biopolymer matrix cause vast majority of human bacterial infections and many severe complications such as chronic inflammatory diseases and cancer. Biofilms' resistance to the host immunity and antibiotics makes this kind of infection particularly intractable. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are a ubiquitous facet of innate immunity in animals. However, AMPs activity was studied mainly on planktonic bacteria and little is known about their effects on biofilms. We studied structure and anti-biofilm activity of AMP complex produced by the maggots of blowfly Calliphora vicina living in environments extremely contaminated by biofilm-forming germs. The complex exhibits strong cell killing and matrix destroying activity against human pathoge

SUBMITTER: Gordya N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5344439 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature