Abstract:Bacterial infections pose a serious threat to global public health, underscoring the urgent need for the development of novel antimicrobial agents. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), as natural products of the innate immune system, offer promising alternative therapies due to their broad-spectrum antibacterial activity, membrane-targeting mechanisms, and low propensity for inducing resistance. AMPs are derived from diverse sources, including animals, plants, and microorganisms. In recent years, with advances in technologies such as artificial intelligence, de novo design has also emerged as an important source of AMPs. The primary antibacterial mechanism of AMPs is believed to involve membrane disruption, with barrel-stave, carpet, and toroidal pore models proposed to explain this process. Beyond membrane disruption, AMPs can target bacterial cell walls, interact with intracellular targets, and modulate host immunity. In addition, AMPs exhibit antibiofilm activity through inhibition of quorum sensing, adhesion, and biofilm matrix synthesis of bacteria. This review provides a comprehensive overview of the sources and the antibacterial and antibiofilm mechanisms of AMPs, offering a reference for delving into the mechanisms of action of AMPs and guiding the rational design of novel AMPs based on the mechanisms.
