Life Sciences Commons^™

Design, Development, And Characterization Of Novel Antimicrobial Peptides For Pharmaceutical Applications, Yazan H. Akkam

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Candida species are the fourth leading cause of nosocomial infection. The increased incidence of drug-resistant Candida species has emphasized the need for new antifungal drugs. Histatin 5 is a naturally occurring human salivary antifungal peptide and the first line of defense against infections of the oral cavity. This research has focused on understanding the activity of histatin 5, and subsequently designing novel peptides that may serve as models for the further development of therapeutics to treat fungal infection.

This objective has been achieved in three steps: studying the structural requirement of histatin 5 involved in antifungal activity, the identification of …

Investigation Of Ll-37-Mediated Sirna Transfection, Mustafa Yalçinkaya, Şahru Yüksel

Turkish Journal of Biology

RNA interference is not only an important tool for studying protein function; it also holds many promises for the treatment of a variety of diseases in which the function of unwanted proteins needs to be suppressed. For small interfering RNA (siRNA) to be used as a therapeutic agent, the biggest hurdle is to find the right delivery agent that is both nontoxic to the cells and efficient in delivery. Synthetic and natural peptides from a variety of organisms have been investigated for this purpose. However, there is still no agent or formulation that has been approved for siRNA delivery. Antimicrobial …