Screening of high efficiency and low toxicity antitumor active components in Macleaya cordata seeds based on the competitive effect of drugs on double targets by a new laminar flow chip

It is urgent to obtain targeted drugs that selectively bind to pathological targets rather than physiological targets in the early stage of drug screening. G-quadruplex has become one of the...

Hydrazone chemistry assisted DNAzyme for the analysis of double targets

In this work, a hydrazone chemistry assisted DNAzyme has been designed and constructed. With superior catalyzed capability, hydrazone chemistry assisted DNAzyme has been successfully applied for analysis of double targets.

Two Hits Are Better than One: Membrane-Active and DNA Binding-Related Double-Action Mechanism of NK-18, a Novel Antimicrobial Peptide Derived from Mammalian NK-Lysin

ABSTRACTThe extensive use and misuse of antibiotics in medicine result in the emergence of multidrug-resistant bacteria, creating an urgent need for the development of new chemotherapeutic agents. Nowadays, antimicrobial peptides are widely recognized as a class of promising candidates with activity against multidrug-resistant bacteria. NK-18 is a truncated peptide derived from NK-Lysin, an effector of cytotoxic T cells and natural killer cells. In this study, we studied the antibacterial mechanism of action of NK-18. The results revealed that NK-18 has potent antibacterial activity againstEscherichia coliandStaphylococcus aureus. According to our findings, NK-18 is membrane active and its target of action is not only the bacterial membrane but also the DNA in the cytoplasm. The double targets of NK-18 make it difficult for bacteria to generate resistance, which may present a new strategy to defend against multidrug-resistant bacteria and provide a new lead in the design of potent antimicrobial peptides with therapeutic application in the presence of increasing resistance to conventional antibiotics.