The quest for an extraordinary array of defense strategies is imperative to reduce the challenges of microbial attacks on plants and animals. Plant antimicrobial peptides (PAMPs) are a subset of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs). PAMPs elicit defense against microbial attacks and prevent drug resistance of pathogens given their wide spectrum activity, excellent structural stability, and diverse mechanism of action. This review aimed to identify the applications, features, production, expression, and challenges of PAMPs using its structure–activity relationship. The discovery techniques used to identify these peptides were also explored to provide insight into their significance in genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and their expression against disease-causing pathogens. This review creates awareness for PAMPs as potential therapeutic agents in the medical and pharmaceutical fields, such as the sensitive treatment of bacterial and fungal diseases and others and their utilization in preserving crops using available transgenic methods in the agronomical field. PAMPs are also safe to handle and are easy to recycle with the use of proteases to convert them into more potent antimicrobial agents for sustainable development.

Infectious diseases are constantly evolving to bypass antibiotics or create resistance against them. There is a piercing alarm for the need to improve the design of new effective antimicrobial agents such as antimicrobial peptides which are less prone to resistance and possess high sensitivity. This would guard public health in combating and overcoming stubborn pathogens and mitigate incurable diseases; however, the emergence of antimicrobial peptides’ shortcomings ranging from untimely degradation by enzymes to difficulty in the design against specific targets is a major bottleneck in achieving these objectives. This review is aimed at highlighting the recent progress in antimicrobial peptide development in the area of nanotechnology-based delivery, selectivity indices, synthesis and characterization, their doping and coating, and the shortfall of these approaches. This review will raise awareness of antimicrobial peptides as prospective therapeutic agents in the medical and pharmaceutical industries, such as the sensitive treatment of diseases and their utilization. The knowledge from this development would guide the future design of these novel peptides and allow the development of highly specific, sensitive, and accurate antimicrobial peptides to initiate treatment regimens in patients to enable them to have accommodating lifestyles.

Africa – like the rest of the world – periodically experiences drought, which may become further exacerbated because of climate change, leading to severe impacts on crop production and food security in the region. The genus Tylosema consists of five distinct species, namely T. humifusum, T. argentum, T. angolense, T. esculentum, and T. fassoglense. Tylosema fassoglense (Schweinf.) Torre & Hillc. has the widest distribution across Africa in diverse habitats, while Tylosema esculentum (Burch.) A. Schreib. is limited to arid regions in southern Africa. T. fassoglense holds unique nutritional composition and bioactive properties, and thus could offer unique uses that are not found in T. esculentum. Consequently, enhancing drought tolerance in T. fassoglense can contribute to food security and sustain its medicinal applications and thus mitigate the impacts of climate change on vulnerable populations in the region. The present study aimed at comparing the physiological and biochemical responses between the two species to elucidate the underlying mechanisms of differences in drought tolerance between T. esculentum and T. fassoglense. We compared water status, growth performance, oxidative stress levels as well as the responses of selected antioxidant components under water deficit in the two species. Our results showed that the water deficit caused higher reductions in leaf water potential and relative water content in T. fassoglense than in T. esculentum, which translated to a higher loss of leaf and root fresh weights in T. fassoglense than in T. esculentum. A higher increase in free proline content, hydrogen peroxide content and lipid peroxidation level were observed in T. fassoglense when compared to T. esculentum. Distinct differences were observed in the antioxidant enzyme activities for superoxide dismutase, catalase, ascorbate peroxidase, and glutathione reductase between these two species in response to water deficit. The observed differences in antioxidant enzyme responses demonstrate their role in the differences in water deficit tolerance between the two species. Further detailed ‘omics’-based analyses will aid in understanding the molecular basis of drought responses in these two species and potentially towards improving drought tolerance in T. fassoglense.