A considerable number of crops and ornamental plants are susceptible to diseases caused by bacteria . Microbial diseases cause significan! economic losses in agricultura! production. In addition, the growth of global trade increases the risk of introduction of new pathogens. In recent years, European normative has restricted the possible antimicrobials against phytopathogens, requiring low toxicity and envirornnentally friendly products. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) offer good prospects as future fungicides and bactericides, since they are biodegradable, hardly induce bacteria! resistance, and are envirornnentally friendly. However, their corrnnercialization is hampered by the high production costs by conventional synthetic methods. This work describes an efficient method for the production of 13 synthetic cathelicidins, and the evaluation of their antimicrobial activity against severa! plan! pathogens, including Pseudomonas syringae pv. !ornato DC3000, Pseudomonas corrugate, Fusarium oxysporum lycopersici, and Clavibacter michiganensis. Sorne of the peptides exhibited a poten! antimicrobial activity. In addition, the haemolytic activity of the peptides was evaluated using rabbit erythrocytes, indicating a low toxicity against eukaryotic membranes. Further studies, such as microtiter in planta assays with Arabidopsis thaliana, are underway to determine the scope of these promising peptides in agriculture

Trabajo presentado en la IV International Conference on Antimicrobial Research ICAR, celebrada en Torremolinos (España) del 29 de junio al 1 de julio de 2016.

Peer Reviewed