Antimicrobial Peptides: Sources, Expression Systems, and Applications

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are widely sourced and have a variety of biological activities such as broad-spectrum antibacterial, antiviral, and anticancer. Since AMPs are less likely to cause drug resistance, they are expected to be an alternative to antibiotics. Compared with natural extraction and chemical synthesis methods, producing AMPs using genetic engineering is a hot research topic for the large-scale production of AMPs. This paper outlines the sources of AMPs, focuses on different expression systems, and reviews the current status of AMPs applications in animal husbandry, food preservation and medicine, and agriculture to provide a theoretical basis and support for using genetic engineering to express AMPs.