Synergistic Interaction between Silver Nanoparticles and Membrane-Permeabilizing Antimicrobial Peptides▿

Silver nanoparticles, as well as antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), can be used to fight infectious diseases. Since AMPs are known to permeabilize bacterial membranes and might therefore help silver nanoparticles to access internal target sites, we investigated their combined activities and showed synergistic effects between polymyxin B and silver nanoparticles for gram-negative bacteria

Short Cationic Antimicrobial Peptides Interact with ATP▿

The mode of action of short, nonhelical antimicrobial peptides is still not well understood. Here we show that these peptides interact with ATP and directly inhibit the actions of certain ATP-dependent enzymes, such as firefly luciferase, DnaK, and DNA polymerase. α-Helical and planar or circular antimicrobial peptides did not show such interaction with ATP