Korean researchers develop antimicrobial peptides discovery tool 

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are a promising new weapon for combating the growing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) of bacteria and other harmful microorganisms. 

Now, researchers from the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST) in South Korea have developed a new, easy-to-interpret AI-powered AMP prediction model.

The tool, named AMP-BERT, can capture the functional and structural properties of peptides and classify them as AMPs and non-AMPs. The researchers say the study is a major step toward accelerating AMP-based drug discovery and therapeutics. 

AMPs are short peptides found in most animals, plants, and microorganisms as a natural defense against infections. AMPs combat harmful bacteria via a nonspecific mechanism that prevents them from developing antimicrobial resistance. Despite these abilities, research on AMPs is being hindered because the existing systems for identifying candidate AMPs are like a black box, where the outputs are not easily interpretable for further analysis.

Image/GIST

Easy interpretation

The study, published in Protein Science, was led by Hojung Nam and Hansol Lee.

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