Over the past years, natural antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) have attracted considerable interests as a new type of antimicrobial agents for several reasons including their relative

selectivity towards targets (microbial membranes), their rapid mechanism of action and, above all, the low frequency in selecting resistant strains. The research team led by Prof. Lai Ren of Kunming institute of zoology, CAS has done a lot of work with the characterization and application of antimicrobial peptides, and set up the Chinese antimicrobial peptide resource library. Acne Vulgaris is a common skin disease caused by some microorganism such as Propionibacterium acnes, however with the abuse of traditional antibiotics, some drug resistanct Propionibacterium acnes strains have appeared, which calls for a new type of antimicrobial agent against the drug resistant P. acnes strains. Recently, the research team found that catherlicidin-BF, a snake cathelicidin-Derived antimicrobial peptide has a significant effect against Propionibacterium acnes. They have used mouse to build a Acne Vulgaris animal model and evaluate the anti-P. acnes abilities of snake-derived antimicrobial peptides in vitro. The result shows that this antimicrobial peptide has good effect on Acne Vulgaris treatment, the research of functional mechanism indicates that this antimicrobial peptide could effectively relieve P. acnes-induced inflammation through inhibiting cytokine production and P. acnes-induced O2- production. Part of their progress has been published on PLOS ONE（Cathelicidin-BF, a Snake Cathelicidin-Derived Antimicrobial Peptide, Could Be an Excellent Therapeutic Agent for Acne Vulgaris 2011，6：e22120）, the research progress has laid the important foundation for further application of antimicrobial peptide.