The Activity of Small Urea‐γ‐AApeptides Toward Gram‐Positive Bacteria

Abstract

Host Defense Peptides (HDPs) have gained considerable interest due to the omnipresent threat of bacterial infection as a serious public health concern. However, development of HDPs is impeded by several drawbacks, such as poor selectivity, susceptibility to proteolytic degradation, low‐to‐moderate activity and requiring complex syntheses. Herein we report a class of lipo‐linear α/urea‐γ‐AApeptides with a hybrid backbone and low molecular weight. The heterogeneous backbone not only enhances chemodiversity, but also shows effective antimicrobial activity against Gram‐positive bacteria and is capable of disrupting bacterial membranes and killing bacteria rapidly. Given their low molecular weight and ease of access via facile synthesis, they could be practical antibiotic agents.Double‐AA peptides: We investigated a new class of small linear molecules as potential antibiotic agents against Gram‐positive bacteria. Our studies suggest that these compounds can disrupt bacterial membranes and kill bacteria rapidly. Given their low molecular weight and ease of accessibility through a facile synthesis approach, they are good candidates for development into antibiotic agents.