Interaction between amphiphilic peptides and phospholipid membranes

This brief review aims at providing some illustrative examples on the interaction between amphiphilic peptides and phospholipid membranes, an area of significant current interest. Focusing on antimicrobial peptides, factors affecting peptide–membrane interactions are addressed, including effects of peptide length, charge, hydrophobicity, secondary structure, and topology. Effects of membrane composition are also illustrated, including effects of membrane charge, nature of the polar headgroup, and presence of cholesterol and other sterols. Throughout, novel insights on the importance of peptide adsorption density on membrane stability are emphasized, as is the correlation between peptide adsorption, peptide-induced leakage in model liposome systems, peptide-induced lysis of bacteria, and bacteria killing.