Abstract
The discovery of diverse population of non-toxic, non-immunogenic and potent selective antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) provides a new strategy to fight microorganisms either as additives or drugs. Different modes of actions of these AMPs have been suggested and identified, like pore-forming, inhibition of cell-wall/nucleic acid/protein synthesis, etc. Since food safety has become an increasingly important international concern, the application of AMPs that target food spoilage/pathogenic bacteria without toxic or other adverse effects to humans has received great attention. In addition consumption of food that has been formulated with chemical preservatives has increased consumer concern and created a demand for more natural and minimally processed food. Therefore, much attention is being directed to food preservation using bacteriocins, which are an interesting group of biomolecules with antimicrobial properties, because of their multiple consumer friendly characteristics including no flavour, textural or biochemical changes of food and are rapidly digested by proteases in human digestive tract. Among these, nisin, an anti-microbial peptide produced by lactic acid bacteria, has been granted GRAS status for certain applications by FDA