Beyond the worm: engineering the next generation of nematode-inspired antimicrobials.

Authors

Elâ I Sutcliffe, Louise E Atkinson, Somenath Bakshi, Ruizhe Li, Ashraf Zarkan, David Smith, Daniel R G Price, Alasdair J Nisbet, Angela Mousley, Cinzia Cantacessi

Published in

Trends in parasitology. Nov 12, 2026. Epub Nov 12, 2026.

Abstract

The global crisis of multidrug-resistant bacteria and parasitic nematodes demands new approaches to infectious disease control. Emerging evidence suggests that gastrointestinal nematodes and the host gut microbiota are inextricably linked in a complex 'holobiont'. Parasitic nematodes have evolved in microbe-rich environments for millennia, developing innate immune defenses. This evolutionary 'arms race' has produced a diverse repertoire of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) that can target bacteria and other gut microbiota. With over 5000 AMP and AMP-like domain-encoding genes identified via computational mining, the bottleneck is validation. The integration of machine learning algorithms with advanced in vitro and ex vivo models will allow prediction of AMP mode of action, spectrum of activity, and efficacy, followed by testing in organoids to address some of the limitations of animal models.

PMID:
43020685
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 13 Nov 2026.

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