A SAP-SUCKING insect may hold the key to a whole new class of antibacterial
drugs, say scientists who have been looking at how these creatures combat
infection.
Instead of antibodies, insects use small peptide molecules to fight off
bacteria. Most of these work by punching a hole in the wall of bacterial cells,
but this means they are often toxic to mammalian cells as well, so they wouldn’t
be suitable for use as drugs in humans.
Now Laszlo Otvos from the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia and his colleagues
have isolated a group of insect peptides which target specific molecules inside…
