Influence of specific amino acid side-chains on the antimicrobial activity and structure of bovine lactoferrampin1This article is part of Special Issue entitled Lactoferrin and has undergone the Journal’s usual peer review process.

2012 ◽  
Vol 90 (3) ◽  
pp. 362-377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evan F. Haney ◽  
Kamran Nazmi ◽  
Jan G.M. Bolscher ◽  
Hans J. Vogel

Lactoferrin is an 80 kDa iron binding protein found in the secretory fluids of mammals and it plays a major role in host defence. An antimicrobial peptide, lactoferrampin, was identified through sequence analysis of bovine lactoferrin and its antimicrobial activity against a wide range of bacteria and yeast species is well documented. In the present work, the contribution of specific amino acid residues of lactoferrampin was examined to evaluate the role that they play in membrane binding and bilayer disruption. The structures of all the bovine lactoferrampin derivatives were examined with circular dichroism and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, and their interactions with phospholipids were evaluated with differential scanning calorimetry and isothermal titration calorimetry techniques. From our results it is apparent that the amphipathic N-terminal helix anchors the peptide to membranes with Trp 268 and Phe 278 playing important roles in determining the strength of the interaction and for inducing peptide folding. In addition, the N-terminal helix capping residues (DLI) increase the affinity for negatively charged vesicles and they mediate the depth of membrane insertion. Finally, the unique flexibility in the cationic C-terminal region of bovine lactoferrampin does not appear to be essential for the antimicrobial activity of the peptide.

Molecules ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 444
Author(s):  
Motoharu Hirano ◽  
Chihiro Saito ◽  
Hidetomo Yokoo ◽  
Chihiro Goto ◽  
Ryuji Kawano ◽  
...  

Magainin 2 (Mag2), which was isolated from the skin of the African clawed frog, is a representative antimicrobial peptide (AMP) that exerts antimicrobial activity via microbial membrane disruption. It has been reported that the helicity and amphipathicity of Mag2 play important roles in its antimicrobial activity. We investigated and recently reported that 17 amino acid residues of Mag2 are required for its antimicrobial activity, and accordingly developed antimicrobial foldamers containing α,α-disubstituted amino acid residues. In this study, we further designed and synthesized a set of Mag2 derivatives bearing the hydrocarbon stapling side chain for helix stabilization. The preferred secondary structures, antimicrobial activities, and cell-membrane disruption activities of the synthesized peptides were evaluated. Our analyses revealed that hydrocarbon stapling strongly stabilized the helical structure of the peptides and enhanced their antimicrobial activity. Moreover, peptide 2 stapling between the first and fifth position from the N-terminus showed higher antimicrobial activity than that of Mag2 against both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria without exerting significant hemolytic activity. To investigate the modes of action of tested peptides 2 and 8 in antimicrobial and hemolytic activity, electrophysiological measurements were performed.


MedChemComm ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 896-900 ◽  
Author(s):  
Takashi Misawa ◽  
Chihiro Goto ◽  
Norihito Shibata ◽  
Motoharu Hirano ◽  
Yutaka Kikuchi ◽  
...  

Amphipathic helical peptideStripeshowed high antimicrobial activity, low hemolytic activity, and low human cell cytotoxicity.


Plants ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eugene Rogozhin ◽  
Dmitry Ryazantsev ◽  
Alexey Smirnov ◽  
Sergey Zavriev

Cereal-derived bioactive peptides with antimicrobial activity have been poorly explored compared to those from dicotyledonous plants. Furthermore, there are a few reports addressing the structural differences between antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) from cultivated and wild cereals, which may shed light on significant varieties in the range and level of their antimicrobial activity. We performed a primary structure analysis of some antimicrobial peptides from wild and cultivated cereals to find out the features that are associated with the much higher antimicrobial resistance characteristic of wild plants. In this review, we identified and analyzed the main parameters determining significant antifungal activity. They relate to a high variability level in the sequences of C-terminal fragments and a high content of hydrophobic amino acid residues in the biologically active defensins in wild cereals, in contrast to AMPs from cultivated forms that usually exhibit weak, if any, activity. We analyzed the similarity of various physicochemical parameters between thionins and defensins. The presence of a high divergence on a fixed part of any polypeptide that is close to defensins could be a determining factor. For all of the currently known hevein-like peptides of cereals, we can say that the determining factor in this regard is the structure of the chitin-binding domain, and in particular, amino acid residues that are not directly involved in intermolecular interaction with chitin. The analysis of amino acid sequences of alpha-hairpinins (hairpin-like peptides) demonstrated much higher antifungal activity and more specificity of the peptides from wild cereals compared with those from wheat and corn, which may be associated with the presence of a mini cluster of positively charged amino acid residues. In addition, at least one hydrophobic residue may be responsible for binding to the components of fungal cell membranes.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hadeel Gassim Hassan ◽  
Abeer Babiker Idris ◽  
Mohamed A. Hassan ◽  
Hisham N. Altayb ◽  
Kyakonye Yasin ◽  
...  

AbstractBackgroundThere is an increase in the prevalence of Helicobacter pylori infection in Sudan, accompanied by a high incidence of upper gastrointestinal malignancy. The cytotoxin-associated gene cagA gene is a marker of a pathogenicity island (PAI) in H. pylori and plays a crucial role in determining the clinical outcome of Helicobacter infections.ObjectiveThis study aimed to determine the frequency and heterogeneity of the cagA gene of H. pylori and correlate the presence of cagA gene with clinical outcomes.Materials and methodsFifty endoscopy biopsies were collected from Fedail and Soba hospitals in Khartoum state. DNA was extracted using the Guanidine chloride method followed by PCR to amplify 16S rRNA and cagA gene of H. pylori using specific primers. DNA amplicons of cagA gene were purified and sequenced. Bioinformatics and statistical analysis were done to characterize and to test the association between cagA gene and gastric complications.ResultsCagA gene was detected in 20/37(54%) of the samples that were found positive for H. pylori. There was no association between endoscopy finding and the presence of the cagA gene (p = 0.225). Specific amino acid variations were found at seven loci related to strains from a patient with duodenitis, gastric ulcer, and gastric atrophy (R448H, T457K, S460L, IT463-464VA, D470E, A482Q, KNV490-491-492TKT) while mutations in cancerous strain were A439P, T457P, and H500Y.ConclusionDisease-specific variations of cagA of H. pylori strains, in the region of amino acid residues 428-510, were evident among Sudanese patients with different gastroduodenal diseases. A novel mutation (K458N) was detected in a patient with duodenitis, which affects the positive electrostatic surface of cagA. Phylogenetic analysis showed a high level of diversity of cagA from Sudanese H. pylori strains.


2015 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
V.S. Skvortsov ◽  
N.N. Alekseychuk ◽  
D.V. Khudyakov ◽  
I.V. Romero Reyes

The data on approximate values of isoelectric point (pI) of peptides obtained during their fractionation by isoelectric focusing can be successfully used for the calculation of the pKa’s scale for amino acid residues. This scale can be used for pI prediction. The data of peptide fractionation also provides information about various posttranslational modifications (PTM), so that the prediction of pI may be performed for a wide range of protein forms. In this study, pKa values were calculated using a set of 13448 peptides (including 300 peptides with PTMs significant for pI calculation). The pKa constants were calculated for N-terminal, internal and C-terminal amino acid residues separately. The comparative analysis has shown that our scale increases the accuracy of pI prediction for peptides and proteins and successfully competes with traditional scales and such methods as support vector machines and artificial neural networks. The prediction performed by this scale, can be made in our program pIPredict with GUI written in JAVA as executable jar-archive. The program is freely available for academic users at http://www.ibmc.msk.ru/LPCIT/pIPredict. The software has also the possibility of pI predicting by some other scales; it recognizes some PTM and has the ability to use a custom scale.


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