Plant Antimicrobial Peptides: State of the Art, In Silico Prediction and Perspectives in the Omics Era. Issue 14 (September 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Santos-Silva, Carlos André dos; Zupin, Luisa; Oliveira-Lima, Marx; Vilela, Lívia Maria Batista; Bezerra-Neto, João Pacifico; Ferreira-Neto, José Ribamar; Ferreira, José Diogo Cavalcanti; Oliveira-Silva, Roberta Lane de; Pires, Carolline de Jesús; Aburjaile, Flavia Figueira; Oliveira, Marianne Firmino de; Kido, Ederson Akio; Crovella, Sergio; Benko-Iseppon, Ana Maria
• Is Part Of: Bioinformatics and biology insights. Volume 2020:Issue 14(2020)
• Publication Date: 2020-09
• Subjects: Defensin -- lipid transfer protein -- hevein -- cyclotide -- snakin -- knotin -- macadamia β-barrelins -- impatiens-like -- puroindoline -- thaumatin; Bioinformatics -- Periodicals; Biology -- Data processing -- Periodicals; 570.285
• DOI: 10.1177/1177932220952739
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1177-9322

Abstract

Even before the perception or interaction with pathogens, plants rely on constitutively guardian molecules, often specific to tissue or stage, with further expression after contact with the pathogen. These guardians include small molecules as antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), generally cysteine-rich, functioning to prevent pathogen establishment. Some of these AMPs are shared among eukaryotes (eg, defensins and cyclotides), others are plant specific (eg, snakins), while some are specific to certain plant families (such as heveins). When compared with other organisms, plants tend to present a higher amount of AMP isoforms due to gene duplications or polyploidy, an occurrence possibly also associated with the sessile habit of plants, which prevents them from evading biotic and environmental stresses. Therefore, plants arise as a rich resource for new AMPs. As these molecules are difficult to retrieve from databases using simple sequence alignments, a description of their characteristics and in silico (bioinformatics) approaches used to retrieve them is provided, considering resources and databases available. The possibilities and applications based on tools versus database approaches are considerable and have been so far underestimated.