What is it about?
The article purpose is a search for novel adjuvants of anti-biofilm activity of antibiotics. We hypothesized that the host antimicrobial peptide (AMP) complexes can be used for this purpose and examined the idea on the example of one blowfly species living in the environments extremely contaminated with biofilm forming bacteria.
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Why is it important?
FLIP7, the AMP complex of the blowfly Calliphora vicina containing a combination of defensins, cecropins, diptericins and proline rich peptides have been isolated by and structurally characterized by LC/MS and transcriptome analysis. The complex demonstrated high synergy with most antibiotics studied. The effect allows reducing anti-biofilm concentration of the antibiotic to a level well below the clinically achievable (2-3 orders of magnitude in the case of meropenem, ampicillin, cefotaxime and oxacillin). Conclusion: FLIP7 is a highly efficient host antimicrobial system helping antibiotics to overcome biofilm barriers through persisters’ sensitization and biofilm material destruction.
Perspectives
We do believe that FLIP7 and similar naturally occurring AMP complexes are promising for the treatment of biofilm infections as an adjuvant of various small molecule antibiotics. Further development in this direction offers a new approach to the solution of the problem of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections.
Sergey Chernysh
St. Petersburg State University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Biofilm infections between Scylla and Charybdis: interplay of host antimicrobial peptides and antibiotics, Infection and Drug Resistance, April 2018, Dove Medical Press,
DOI: 10.2147/idr.s157847.
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