Defensins: antimicrobial peptides for therapeutic development.

A novel class of endogenous antimicrobial peptides called defensins has shown great versatility in their activity against a diverse range of microorganisms including bacteria, viruses and fungi. Their mode of action of bacterial cell lysis seems largely nonspecific and so promises to avert the development of resistance. These two features have made them an area of intense research activity and growing commercial interest. A successful multidisciplinary effort to investigate and develop novel defensins analogues has been established in Singapore that involves computer modeling, biochemistry, proteomics, chemical synthesis, molecular biology and clinical sciences.