Chapter 8 - Antimicrobial protein and peptides from marine macroalgae

Abstract

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are essential components of innate host defenses used by both prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms, exhibiting a broad range of activity against bacteria, viruses, fungi, and multi-resistant pathogens. For these reasons, AMPs have been considered as potential therapeutic sources of novel antibiotics. The marine environment is known to be one of the richest sources of AMPs. Despite their diverse nature, with high sequence similarities, their presence and functional roles in macroalgae remain largely unexplored. This chapter presents the importance of these peptides and the current advances that have been made to identify, isolate, and characterize algal AMPs using in vitro and in silico methodologies.