How Animals and Plants Use Antimicrobial Peptides, How They Work, and How to Design Interesting New Molecules

The 2017 Antimicrobial Peptides GRC takes place 35 years after the pioneering report in Nature by Hans Boman and his colleagues of the discovery of cecropins (Steiner H, Hultmark D, Engström A, Bennich H, Boman HG. Sequence and specificity of two antibacterial proteins involved in insect immunity. Nature 1981; 292:246-8). This simple study taught us that when an insect is challenged by a pathogen it protects its inner milieu by elaborating high concentrations of antimicrobial peptides. Since that landmark publication, AMPs are now known to be widely expressed in both plants and animals, have been studied in states of human health and disease, and have been developed as human therapeutics. Because of the diverse scientific and medical fields in which AMPs are studied, it is difficult to grasp the "larger picture" in which they now are positioned. The purpose of this meeting is to provide a broad overview of our current state of knowledge regarding AMPs.