Beta-defensin 131A antimicrobial peptide
A synthetic peptide that kills or stops the growth of bacteria; used only as a lab research tool.
A researcher, an agent, or an algorithm wrote down the sequence and picked a target to hit.
An AI model like OpenFold3 or AlphaFold built a 3D structure and scored how well it fits the binding site.
A second contributor repeated the computation on their own hardware and the scores matched.
Literature-extracted sequence peptide — synthesized for bioassay as documented in linked reference(s)
Fork this card to add platform evidence →
Activity measured in linked reference(s) — IC50/MIC/cytotoxicity data
Fork this card to add platform evidence →
Research directions for this peptide, selected from the current sources — hypotheses you can explore and model. None of it is proven yet; tap any one to see the full thinking.
Could we strip out the costly, hard-to-make structural knots in this peptide and still get a working antibiotic?
Natural defensive peptides rely on elaborate molecular scaffolding that is expensive and fragile to manufacture. If the straightforward, positively charged tail of this peptide does the bacteria-killing work on its own, simpler and cheaper versions could be made at scale, which could matter for developing affordable antibiotics.
Could this peptide break through the thick, waxy coating that makes tuberculosis so hard to treat?
Drug-resistant TB kills hundreds of thousands of people each year, and few new treatments are in the pipeline. If this peptide can pierce the unusually tough outer layer of the TB bacterium without harming the immune cells fighting the infection, it could become a lead candidate for a new class of TB drug.
If we lock this peptide onto a tiny particle so bacteria cannot pump it out, does it stay effective against resistant bugs?
Many bacteria defeat antibiotics by actively pumping them out before they cause damage. Attaching the peptide to a nanoparticle surface could block that escape route, potentially restoring killing power against otherwise resistant strains, which would be useful in hospital settings where multidrug-resistant infections are rising.
Do cancer cells have a surface property that attracts this peptide and makes them more vulnerable than normal cells?
Cancer cells rearrange their outer membrane in a way that makes it more negatively charged than healthy cells. If this peptide sticks preferentially to that altered surface and kills those cells, it could offer a new type of cancer-fighting compound that causes less collateral damage to healthy tissue.
Could a small amount of this peptide stop the fungus Candida from forming the protective layers that make it so hard to clear?
Candida biofilms, the sticky communities the fungus forms on catheters and tissues, are notoriously resistant to antifungal drugs and cause serious infections in vulnerable patients. If this peptide can interfere with biofilm formation at doses too low to cause broader harm, it could be a useful tool against a problem that current drugs increasingly struggle to solve.
Could this peptide act as a chemical signal that calls immune cells to a site of injury or infection?
Some natural defensive peptides do double duty, killing microbes and also alerting the immune system to rally reinforcements. If the charged tail of this peptide independently signals immune cells to move in, it could have uses beyond antibiotics, for instance speeding up wound healing or boosting the effectiveness of vaccines.
▸full evidence table1 metrics
| metric | value | tool |
|---|---|---|
| ranking score | 0.7473565340042114 | boltz-2 |
▸3-letter notation
▸recipeboltz-2 2.2.1
| parameter | value |
|---|---|
| model | boltz-2 2.2.1 |
| weights | — |
| hardware | vast_v100_32gb |
| mlx version | — |
| python | — |
| random seed | 1 |
| msa strategy | none_monomer |
| runtime | — |
| predicted by | — |
| predicted at | 2026-05-23 |
▸citationbibtex
@peptide{pep05597,
sequence = {FFSLFKARTLFFKDTCSLEGYTCRMKCNADEHAIRYCTDWTICCKEKKIRLKKRKKW},
target = {antimicrobial},
author = {peptidemodel},
year = {2026},
status = {bioassayed}
}