Open AccessUsing fluorescence microscopy to shed light on the mechanisms of antimicrobial peptides
Author(s) -
Anne K. Buck,
Donald E. Elmore,
Louise E.O. Darling
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
future medicinal chemistry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.708
H-Index - 69
eISSN - 1756-8927
pISSN - 1756-8919
DOI - 10.4155/fmc-2019-0095
Subject(s) - antimicrobial peptides , fluorescence microscope , biophysics , fluorescence , peptide , chemistry , microscopy , nanotechnology , membrane , antimicrobial , biology , computational biology , biochemistry , microbiology and biotechnology , materials science , medicine , physics , pathology , quantum mechanics
Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are promising in the fight against increasing bacterial resistance, but the development of AMPs with enhanced activity requires a thorough understanding of their mechanisms of action. Fluorescence microscopy is one of the most flexible and effective tools to characterize AMPs, particularly in its ability to measure the membrane interactions and cellular localization of peptides. Recent advances have increased the scope of research questions that can be addressed via microscopy through improving spatial and temporal resolution. Unique combinations of fluorescent labels and dyes can simultaneously consider different aspects of peptide-membrane interaction mechanisms. This review emphasizes the central role that fluorescence microscopy will continue to play in the interrogation of AMP structure-function relationships and the engineering of more potent peptides.