Abstract:
With the advent of bacterial resistance, it has become crucial to find substitutes to conventional antibiotics. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are considered to be viable alternatives, because they are broad spectrum and since bacteria develop little or no resistance towards AMPs. Only few AMPS are used as therapeutics, due to problems such as toxicity, short circulation half-life, and rapid kidney clearance. Recently, Hyperbranched polyglycerol (HPG) has gained attention due to its excellent biocompatibility and multifunctionality, compactness and long blood circulation time, which can be defined by changing its molecular weight. HPGs have been used as scaffolds for the development of drug delivery vehicles, protein conjugates, and for cell surface modifications. Recent progress on methods to maintain activity and decrease toxicity of these peptides using polyglycerol systems will be presented.