Antimicrobial Peptides with High Proteolytic Resistance for Combating Gram-Negative Bacteria.

Abstract

Poor proteolytic resistance is an urgent problem to be solved in the clinical application of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), yet common solutions, such as complicated chemical modifications and utilization of d-amino acids, greatly increase the difficulty and cost of producing AMPs. In this work, a set of novel peptides was synthesized based on an antitrypsin/antichymotrypsin hydrolytic peptide structure unit (XYPX) n (X represents I, L, and V; Y represents R and K), which was designed using a systematic natural amino acid arrangement. Of these peptides, 16 with seven repeat units had the highest average selectivity index (GMSI = 99.07) for all of the Gram-negative bacteria tested and remained highly effective in combating Escherichia coli infection in vivo. Importantly, 16 also had dramatic resistance to a high concentration of trypsin/chymotrypsin hydrolysis and exerted bactericidal activity through a membrane-disruptive mechanism. Overall, these findings provide new approaches for the development of antiprotease hydrolytic peptides that target Gram-negative bacteria.

• Authors: Jiajun Wang, Jing Song, Zhanyi Yang, Shiqi He, Yi Yang, Xingjun Feng, Xiujing Dou, Anshan Shan
• Journal: Journal of medicinal chemistry (J Med Chem) Vol. 62 Issue 5 Pg. 2286-2304 (03 14 2019) ISSN: 1520-4804 [Electronic] United States
• PMID: 30742437 (Publication Type: Journal Article, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't)

Chemical References

• Anti-Bacterial Agents
• Antimicrobial Cationic Peptides
• Biocompatible Materials

Topics

• Animals
• Anti-Bacterial Agents (pharmacology)
• Antimicrobial Cationic Peptides (chemistry, pharmacology)
• Biocompatible Materials
• Gram-Negative Bacteria (drug effects, ultrastructure)
• HEK293 Cells
• Humans
• Mice
• Microbial Sensitivity Tests
• Microscopy, Electron, Scanning
• Proteolysis
• RAW 264.7 Cells
• Spectrometry, Fluorescence