Prediction of linear cationic antimicrobial peptides based on characteristics responsible for their interaction with the membranes.

Most available antimicrobial peptides (AMP) prediction methods use common approach for different classes of AMP. Contrary to available approaches, we suggest that a strategy of prediction should be based on the fact that there are several kinds of AMP that vary in mechanisms of action, structure, mode of interaction with membrane, etc. According to our suggestion for each kind of AMP, a particular approach has to be developed in order to get high efficacy. Consequently, in this paper, a particular but the biggest class of AMP, linear cationic antimicrobial peptides (LCAP), has been considered and a newly developed simple method of LCAP prediction described. The aim of this study is the development of a simple method of discrimination of AMP from non-AMP, the efficiency of which will be determined by efficiencies of selected descriptors only and comparison the results of the discrimination procedure with the results obtained by more complicated discriminative methods. As descriptors the physicochemical cha...