Abstract
Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) constitute host defense peptides found among insects, fish, amphibians, and mammals including man. The targets of AMPs are gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria, fungi, enveloped viruses, and transformed/cancerous cells. The AMPs are broad spectrum antibiotics which display the propensity to serve as therapeutic agents not only in infectious disease, but also in human cancer. AMPs demonstrate unique properties which include cell membrane penetration, destabilization of biological membranes, ability to form and/or interact with membrane channels, and the capability to modulate host immune responses. The three types of AMPs consists a) naturally-occurring; b) artificially synthesized; and c) cleaved peptide fragments from blood and extracellular matrix proteins. The present treatise presents one such example of an AMP-like peptide derived from a naturally-occurring human protein as a potential candidate for future cancer therapy. The biological activities of human AMP-like peptides as cancer therapeutic agents are reviewed and reported in multiple in vitro and in vivo cancer assays. The possibility of using such human protein-derived peptides as primary and adjunct cancer therapeutic agents is addressed.
Highlights
Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) serve as potent, broad spectrum antibiotics found in many eukaryotic animal species [1]
The objective of the present review is to provide evidence that AMPs could serve as ideal candidates for cancer chemotherapy
The preceding discourse has presented the case that antimicrobial-like peptides could potentially be utilized as adjunct or single agents in the course of human cancer chemotherapy
Summary
Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) serve as potent, broad spectrum antibiotics found in many eukaryotic animal species [1]. Such potential clinical applications have been addressed in summaries of published reports based on preclinical studies of animal models and in vitro human cell culture studies Such reports addressed GIP serving as an agent for: 1) cell chemosensitization; 2) cell radiosensitization; 3) binding to allosteric sites on proteins; 4) postsurgical cancer therapy; 5) disabling the tumor-to-micro-environment communication network; 6) disrupting metastatic cancer cell adherence to platelet islet clusters in the bloodstream; 7) enhancement of the adaptive T-cell immune response; and 8) boosting AFP epitope antigen presentation by dendritic cells All of the preceding studies have been documented by data in previously published pre-clinical studies [35,44,45]
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