Development of Random Peptide Mixtures as Crop Protection Agents

To date, management of plant diseases caused by phytopathogenic bacteria is mainly based on the use of copper (Cu)-based bactericides. These compounds possess limited efficacy, thus requiring frequent applications at high Cu concentrations, thus increasing production cost. Moreover, in recent years there is also an increased emergence of Cu-resistant plant pathogenic bacterial strains. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop novel technologies to prevent and manage bacterial plant diseases. Host defense peptides (HDP) have emerged as good candidates as antimicrobial agents. The broad molecular diversity among HDP`s suggests that their bioactivity is not tightly coupled to specific features of amino acid sequence or peptide conformation. These facts have inspired us to develop a novel approach to synthesize random peptide mixtures as potent antimicrobial compounds. In our research, we developed random peptide mixtures as novel antimicrobial compounds for crop protection in agriculture. We have demonstrated the potential of these compounds against various plant pathogenic bacterial species in vito and in planta with two pathosystems. Our compounds have shown great potential as lead agents for further study as crop protection.