Evidence map›Paper›PMID 41776033›Full record

ArticleNature biomedical engineering2026

Uncovering evolutionarily remote and highly potent antimicrobial peptides with protein language models.

Qinze Yu, Hongbin Liu, Haimei Shi, Yerzhan Abdrakhmanov, Junbo Shen, Chunhe Zhang, Zhihang Dong, Licheng Zong, Longlong Si, Lei Dai and 1 more

Abstract read
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In one paragraph

Article in Nature biomedical engineering, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
0citing papers in PubMed
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1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

0 citing papers in PubMed.

No citing paper in PubMed yet.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

11 authors.

Qinze Yu *Department of Computer Science and Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.ORCID http://orcid.org/0009-0000-5116-2833
Hongbin Liu *State Key Laboratory of Quantitative Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen Institute of Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, China.
Haimei Shi *State Key Laboratory of Quantitative Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen Institute of Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, China.
Yerzhan AbdrakhmanovDepartment of Computer Science and Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.
Junbo ShenDepartment of Computer Science and Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.ORCID http://orcid.org/0009-0000-6259-7509
Chunhe ZhangState Key Laboratory of Quantitative Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen Institute of Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, China.
Zhihang DongDepartment of Computer Science and Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.
Licheng ZongDepartment of Computer Science and Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5418-005X
Longlong SiState Key Laboratory of Quantitative Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen Institute of Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, China.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0504-1659
Lei DaiState Key Laboratory of Quantitative Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen Institute of Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, China. lei.dai@siat.ac.cn.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5598-5308
Yu LiDepartment of Computer Science and Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China. liyu@cse.cuhk.edu.hk.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3664-6722

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Identifying evolutionarily remote antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) is crucial for discovering underexplored clinical candidates to combat antibiotic resistance. Existing experimental and computational methods are limited by their reliance on sequence identity to known AMPs, missing distant homologues. Here we introduce HMD-AMP, a protein language model-based approach for AMP discovery. HMD-AMP outperforms previous methods in identifying evolutionarily distant AMPs and enables the discovery of unknown and highly potent AMPs from metagenomic data. Applied to host and gut microorganism genomes of nine mammals, HMD-AMP revealed over 37 million predicted AMPs. Of 91 high-confidence sequences experimentally validated, 74 showed strong antibacterial activity and 48 were evolutionarily remote from known AMPs. Four of these AMPs exhibited broad-spectrum antibacterial activity at low effective concentrations and showed low toxicity, with the most potent peptide demonstrating therapeutic efficacy in a mouse model of peritoneal Escherichia coli infection. This study introduces an effective strategy to uncover AMPs.

Identifiers

PMID41776033

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.