Antibacterial peptides, what does this sound like a mouthful of names mean? “There is a lot of abuse of antibiotics. The industry is always looking for alternative antibiotics. Antibacterial peptides are currently recognized as the most potential.” According to Li Shizhen, the world’s first antibacterial peptide was discovered by the Swedish scientist G. Boman et al. induced the antibacterial activity of P. sinensis by injection of C. vaginalis and Escherichia coli, and named Cecropins. Antibacterial peptides have broad-spectrum antibacterial activity and have a strong killing effect on bacteria, especially its killing effect on certain drug-resistant pathogens has attracted people's attention. Antibacterial peptides are expected to replace antibiotics and preservatives in the future. In addition, it has also been found that certain antimicrobial peptides have a killing effect on some viruses, fungi, protozoa and cancer cells, and can even improve immunity and accelerate wound healing.
Such a good product, why the people have barely heard it? It turns out that the current antibacterial peptide industry is an emerging high-tech bioengineering and biotechnology industry. Due to the imperfect early bioengineering methods, the extraction of antimicrobial peptides is extremely expensive, limiting its application in medicine, agriculture, and industry. The industry believes that only antimicrobial peptides that cost less than $10 per gram can be commercialized. Li Shizhen told reporters that because of the high cost of application, scientists have used chemical synthesis to produce antimicrobial peptides. Chemically synthesized 10mg, 20 amino acid antibacterial peptides cost more than 2,000 yuan, can not be market-based applications, only in the laboratory. The latest research and development results of Portuguese scientists are only 4mg/L, and the cost of 1g still needs hundreds of dollars. Therefore, how to improve the production efficiency and reduce the cost of the antimicrobial peptide is a problem that must be solved by applying the antimicrobial peptide.
