# PepSAVI-MS for discovery of novel botanical antimicrobial peptides

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIV OF NORTH CAROLINA CHAPEL HILL · 2021 · $194,805

## Abstract

ABSTRACT
The continued evolution of antimicrobial resistance emphasizes the dire need for discovery of
antibiotic therapeutics with novel mechanisms of action. Technological advances in genome
sequencing, drug library creation, and structural informatics have not advanced infectious disease
treatments sufficiently. While natural products have long served as inspiration for novel
therapeutic scaffolds, we posit peptide-derived entities offer great potential to address current
needs due to their unique mechanisms of action, penetration and selectively. Herein, we describe
our PepSAVI-MS pipeline to discover and characterize peptides with antimicrobial activity through
implementation of a hybrid bioassay-guided/peptidomics platform. We directly identify botanical
peptides contributing to bioactivity profiles using robust microbial bioassays optimized for peptide
screening and using a mass spectrometry-based peptidomics approach coupled to statistical
modeling and informatics to identify and further characterize these peptides at the molecular level.
These potential lead compounds are then tested against an extensive panel of clinical ESKAPE
pathogens, as well as for favorable drug characteristics and determination of mechanism-of-
action. Our platform enables robust mining of plants and other natural sources for peptidyl species
with unique or broad-spectrum anti-infective properties and has the potential to lead to the
discovery of novel chemistries at the forefront of modern drug discovery.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10376454
- **Project number:** 3R01GM125814-04S1
- **Recipient organization:** UNIV OF NORTH CAROLINA CHAPEL HILL
- **Principal Investigator:** Leslie M. Hicks
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $194,805
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2018-05-01 → 2023-02-28

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10376454

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10376454, PepSAVI-MS for discovery of novel botanical antimicrobial peptides (3R01GM125814-04S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-27 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10376454. Licensed CC0.

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