Advances in research on molecular design of antimicrobial peptides

Antimicrobial peptides(AMPs) are a kind of micromolecular peptides with antibacterial,antivirus and antitumor activities.Unlike conventional antibiotics,acquisition of resistance by a sensitive microbial strain against AMPs is surprisingly improbable.AMPs are not widely used clinically due to their toxicity,susceptibility to proteolysis and high manufacturing cost.Researchers have obtained some AMPs with high activity and low toxicity by structure modifications.The molecular design of AMPs as well as their development in the future are reviewed.