Antimicrobial peptides are small-molecule proteins that are usually encoded by multiple-gene families. They play crucial roles in the innate immune response, but reports on the functional divergence of antimicrobial peptide gene families are rare. In this study, 14 paralogs of antimicrobial peptides belonging to cecropin, moricin and gloverin families were recombinantly expressed in pET express...

INTRODUCTION Antimicrobials are being used unnecessarily for different reasons. The aims of this study were: assessment of the quality of antimicrobial use and determination of the factors related to correct use. METHOD Antimicrobial practice at Dicle University Hospital (DUH) was evaluated with a point prevalence approach. Using a standardized data collection form, the patients' data (clinic...

We report the creation of alkylated poly-N-substituted glycine (peptoid) mimics of antimicrobial lipopeptides with alkyl tails ranging from 5 to 13 carbons. In several cases, alkylation significantly improved the selectivity of the peptoids with no loss in antimicrobial potency. Using this technique, we synthesized an antimicrobial peptoid only 5 monomers in length with selective, broad-spectru...

Background Antimicrobial resistance has become a serious threat to public health undermining the efficacy of existing antimicrobials (including the last-resort ones) while very few novel antimicrobial agents are in the development pipeline. The interventions aimed to contain antimicrobial resistance need a continuous surveillance of new mechanisms of resistance emergence and the spread of exist...

Human safety and well-being is threatened by microbes causing numerous infectious diseases resulting in a large number of deaths every year. Despite substantial progress in antimicrobial drugs, many infectious diseases remain difficult to treat. Antimicrobial polymers offer a promising antimicrobial strategy for fighting pathogens and have received considerable attention in both academic and in...

Conventional swine production evolved to routinely use antimicrobials, and common occurrence of antimicrobial-resistant Salmonella has been reported. There is a paucity of information on the antimicrobial resistance of Salmonella in swine production in the absence of antimicrobial selective pressure. Therefore, we compared the prevalence and antimicrobial resistance of Salmonella isolated from ...

To cite: Charani E, Holmes AH. BMJ Qual Saf 2013;22:885–887. Antimicrobial resistance has been recognised as a major global health threat and is now on the political agenda with world leaders recognising the necessity to act to preserve the potency of antimicrobial agents and invest funds to discover new ones. Despite the majority of antimicrobial prescribing and consumption occurring in primar...

An on-farm pharmaco-epidemiological survey of 246 turkey broiler flocks from 131 farms was carried out to assess the homogeneity of antimicrobial use between flocks on the same farm and to explore the possible relationships between farm and farmer characteristics and the level of antimicrobial use. The antimicrobial use in each flock was quantified by an invoice study, expressed as the number o...

The special issue "Antimicrobial Polymers" includes research and review papers concerning the recent advances on preparation of antimicrobial polymers and their relevance to industrial settings and biomedical field. Antimicrobial polymers have recently emerged as promising candidates to fight microbial contamination onto surfaces thanks to their interesting properties. In this special issue, th...

The role of antimicrobial pharmacists has changed considerably over the past 15 years. We describe here the development and ratification of a new expert professional curriculum to guide the training and development of antimicrobial specialist pharmacists. The curriculum has been developed by the UK Clinical Pharmacy Association Pharmacy Infection Network and endorsed by the Royal Pharmaceutical...