两栖类动物抗菌肽活性研究

两栖类动物复杂的生存环境决定了其抗菌肽种类的多样性,抗菌肽种类及其结果的多样性则又决定了其作用的多样性。随着研究的深入,越来越多的抗菌肽从两栖类动物中发现,并得到研究。其中很多抗菌肽具有很好的生产使用价值。本文通过检索相关文献,对两栖类动物抗菌肽的活性进行了综述。     

Cathelicidins家族抗菌肽研究进展

Cathelicidins是一类具有广谱抗微生物活性的多功能抗菌肽。迄今为止,在几乎所有种类的脊椎动物体内均有发现,在动物先天免疫系统中发挥极其重要的作用。Cathelicidins不仅对普通革兰氏阳性菌、革兰氏阴性菌、真菌以及病毒具有非常强的抗性,而且对许多临床分离耐药菌株同样具有作用。Cathelicidins具有特殊的杀菌机理,不易产生耐药性。此外,cathelicidins结构简单,溶血活性和细胞毒性小,因此极具开发潜力。该文主要对cathelicidins的结构与分类、生物活性与功能、作用特点与机制及其在医药领域中的应用前景和存在问题进行了综述。     

中国对虾PC-Ⅲ系列抗菌肽的分离纯化及活性

以我国主要经济海产品中国对虾（Penus chinensis）为研究对象,通过Sephadex G-50、RP-HPLC等技术分离纯化到PC-Ⅲ系列中国对虾天然抗菌肽。经初步鉴定,该系列抗菌肽对革兰氏阴性和革兰氏阳性菌都表现出程度不一的抑菌活性,且不同程度地影响小白鼠离体回肠肌收缩,但无丝氨酸蛋白酶抑制剂活性。用MALDI-TOF质谱对样品进行分析,检测到分子量分别为1071Da和1311Da的两种抗菌肽。这些抗菌肽对对虾抵御微生物的侵袭具有重要的作用。     

蛙科两栖动物皮肤抗菌肽的分子多样性及功能

摘要: 蛙科(Ranidae)是全球分布最广泛的两栖动物, 种类超过650种。为开拓和适应广阔的栖息地及多样的生态环境, 其皮肤腺体中进化产生了结构复杂、种类繁多的抗菌肽。它们除具有广谱抗菌活性外, 还有抗肿瘤、抗病毒等生物学活性。蛙科动物皮肤抗菌肽起源于共同祖先, 在漫长的进化过程中, 基因发生了多重复制和突变, 形成了天然抗菌肽的巨大资源库。这些肽在模拟膜的溶剂中几乎都是疏水的, 并带正电荷, 以一种两亲性的α-螺旋的构象存在。根据氨基酸组成及结构的相似性, 可以将蛙科动物抗菌肽分成brevinin-1、esculentin-1、esculentin-2、temporin、ranalexin、ranatuerin-1、ranatuerin-2、plaustrin、brevinin-2、tigerinin、japonicin、nigrocin和melittin相关肽等若干个家族。文章结合作者的研究工作, 综述了目前已经鉴定的蛙科动物皮肤抗菌肽的分子多样性特点、家族性质和生物学活性的研究进展, 并阐述了东北林蛙新家族抗菌肽的特点。 关键词: 蛙科; 抗菌肽家族; 分子多样性; 生物学活性     

大弹涂鱼皮肤转录组测序及抗菌肽基因分析

抗菌肽是鱼类用于抵御外界微生物入侵的天然防御多肽,也是开发新型药物的重要先导分子。大弹涂鱼(Boleophthalmus pectinirostris)是一种特殊的可以营两栖生活的鱼类,其皮肤表面具有丰富的粘液,其中所含抗菌肽对其免疫防御和适应两栖生活具有重要意义。为深入了解大弹涂鱼皮肤组织基因表达谱并从中筛选抗菌肽相关基因,采用新一代Illumina高通量测序平台对大弹涂鱼皮肤组织进行了转录组测序。利用Trinity软件从头组装,从测得的78 608 366条双端测序读长(paired-end read)共计6 GB的序列数据中获得119 848条高质量的蛋白质编码基因(unigene)。经公共数据库序列检索和比对,发现7个unigene编码的多肽与已知的鱼类5大家族的抗菌肽高度同源,即β-防御素(β-defensin)、hepcidin、NK-lysin、piscidin和肝表达抗菌肽-2(liver-expressed antimicrobial peptide-2,LEAP-2)。最后,对上述抗菌肽相关unigene开展了组织表达差异分析、序列比对及进化树分析。研究结果为进一步了解大弹涂鱼适应两栖生活的免疫防御机制和利用新鉴定的抗菌肽开发新型抗菌药物奠定了基础。     

抗菌肽的研究现状和挑战

抗菌肽(AMPs)广泛存在于生物体内,可以协助机体抵御外源微生物的侵害,是生物体先天性防御系统中的重要组成成分。普遍认为,抗菌肽通过膜损伤机制,破坏微生物细胞膜或细胞壁的完整性,达到抑杀微生物的目的。然而,越来越多的证据表明抗菌肽还存在非膜损伤机制,作用于胞内靶位点杀伤细胞。由于其独特的作用机制及广谱抗菌活性,抗菌肽被应用于各行各业。但是,抗菌肽的推广应用也面临着诸多难题,如生物稳定性、抗菌活性的维持和微生物耐受性等。主要对抗菌肽的种类、作用机制、微生物对抗菌肽耐受性的产生机制及抗菌肽的应用和挑战进行综述。     

绵羊抗菌肽研究进展

抗菌肽是动植物先天性免疫系统的组成部分。概述了绵羊抗菌肽Defensin、Cathelicidins、SAAPs的研究进展和应用前景,并分析了在绵羊抗菌肽研究中存在的问题。     

骨骼基因分化特征研究

两栖类动物是如何在空气中保持其裸露皮肤免受自由基的伤害,不论从进化的角度或对动物皮肤生物学感兴趣的研究者来说,都是个很重要的问题。中国科学家从大绿蛙的皮肤中新发现了名为antioxidin-RL的抗氧化小肽,这为抗氧化 氧化肽系统在两栖类动物皮肤中可能广泛存在提供了佐证。     

抗菌肽的筛选策略及其应用研究进展

抗菌肽是生物体产生的、抵抗外源病原物侵袭并具有广谱抗微生物作用的多肽类物质,是天然免疫系统的重要组成部分。从首次发现抗菌肽以来,现在已经获得了上千个有不同活性的抗菌肽候选者。回顾和总结了抗菌肽筛选的策略,包括经典方法、差异显示法、基于核酸的方法以及基于生物信息学分析法等,并重点介绍了最近提出的一种高通量筛选方法。最后本文对抗菌肽的临床应用研究,尤其是对进入临床评价阶段的抗菌肽研究进展进行了综述。     

"两栖类动物"一课的教学探讨

在北京市试用的九年义务教育初中《生物学第二册 (下 )》课本中 ,“两栖类动物”的教学单元概述了两栖类动物的主要特征及常见种类。大多数教师误认为该单元课题内容简单 ,学生的感性知识较多 ,容易理解有关概念 ,因而重视程度差 ,教学过程草草而过。本人觉得 ,两栖类动物是从水生到陆生的过渡类群 ,在进化历程中处于较重要的位置。两栖类动物的幼体用鳃呼吸 ,而多数学生从未直接观察过蝌蚪的鳃器官 ,若选择探究教学模式组织单元教学活动 ,必将在培养学生的观察能力和思维能力等方面取得较好的教学效果。为此 ,本人在 1 5中组织了“两栖类动…     

Amphibian cathelicidin fills the evolutionary gap of cathelicidin in vertebrate

Cathelicidins comprise a family of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) sharing a highly conserved cathelin domain, and play a central role in the innate defense against infection in most of vertebrates. But so far it has not yet been found in amphibians although a large number of other groups of AMPs have been identified. In the current work, the first amphibian cathelicidin (cathelicidin-AL) has been characterized from the frog skin of Amolops loloensis. Cathelicidin-AL (RRSRRGRGGGRRGGSGGRGGRGGGGRSGAGSSIAGVGSRGGGGGRHYA) is a cationic peptide containing 48 amino acid residues (aa) with 12 basic aa and no acidic aa. The chemical synthesized peptide efficiently killed bacteria and some fungal species including clinically isolated drug-resistance microorganisms. The cDNA encoding cathelicidin-AL precursor was cloned from the skin cDNA library of A. loloensis. As other cathelicidins, the precursor of cathelicidin-AL also contains highly conserved anionic cathelin domain of cysteine proteinase inhibitor followed by the AMP fragment at C-terminus. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that as connecting link, the amphibian cathelicidin predates reptilia but postdates fish cathelicidin. The peptide purification combined with gene cloning results confirms the presence of cathelicidin in amphibians and filled the evolutionary gap of cathelicidin in vertebrate, considering amphibians' special niche as the animals bridging the evolutionary land-water gap.     

Extremely abundant antimicrobial peptides existed in the skins of nine kinds of Chinese odorous frogs

Peptide agents are regarded as hopeful candidates to solve life-threatening resistance of pathogenic microorganisms to classic antibiotics due to their unique action mechanisms. Peptidomic and genomic investigation of natural antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) from amphibian skin secretions can provide a large amount of structure-functional information to design peptide antibiotics with therapeutic potential. In the present study, we identified a large number of AMPs from the skins of nine kinds of Chinese odorous frogs. Eighty AMPs were purified from three different odorous frogs and confirmed by peptidomic analysis. Our results indicated that post-translational modification of AMPs rarely happened in odorous frogs. cDNAs encoding precursors of 728 AMPs, including all the precursors of the confirmed 80 native peptides, were cloned from the constructed AMP cDNA libraries of nine Chinese odorous frogs. On the basis of the sequence similarity of deduced mature peptides, these 728 AMPs were grouped into 97 different families in which 71 novel families were identified. Out of these 728 AMPs, 662 AMPs were novel and 28 AMPs were reported previously in other frog species. Our results revealed that identical AMPs were widely distributed in odorous frogs; 49 presently identified AMPs could find their identical molecules in different amphibian species. Purified peptides showed strong antimicrobial activities against 4 tested microbe strains. Twenty-three deduced peptides were synthesized and their bioactivities, including antimicrobial, antioxidant, hemolytic, immunomodulatory and insulin-releasing activities, were evaluated. Our findings demonstrate the extreme diversity of AMPs in amphibian skins and provide plenty of templates to develop novel peptide antibiotics.     

Hainanenins: a novel family of antimicrobial peptides with strong activity from Hainan cascade-frog, Amolops hainanensis

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) secreted by amphibian skin represent an important innate immune defense strategy. There are more than 340 species in the family of Ranidae worldwidely, and from which nearly 100 families of AMPs comprising between 8 and 48 amino acid (aa) residues have been characterized. In current work, two novel AMPs were purified from the skin secretion of Hainan cascade-frog, Amolops hainanensis, and 31 cDNA sequences encoding 10 novel AMPs belonging to 4 families were cloned from the constructed skin cDNA library of A. hainanensis. Among these 10 AMPs, 5 peptides represent the prototypes of a novel amphibian AMP family. According to the generic name of the species of origin, they were designated as hainanenin-1-5. Each of them consists of 21 aa residues with a C-terminal disulphide loop of 7 residues between Cys(15) and Cys(21). Two of them (hainanenin-1 and 5) were then synthesized and their in vitro activities were screened, including antimicrobial, hemolytic and antioxidant activities. The results showed that hainanenin-1 and 5 possessed strong and broad-spectrum antimicrobial activities against Gram-positive, Gram-negative bacteria and fungi, including a large number of clinically isolated drug-resistant pathogenic microorganisms, and slight antioxidant activity. Undesirably, hainanenin-1 and 5 exhibited strong hemolytic activity on human erythrocytes. The discovery of hainanenins and their great antimicrobial potency provides new templates for anti-infective agent design.     

The role of natural antimicrobial peptides during infection and chronic inflammation

Natural antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), a family of small polypeptides that are produced by constitutive or inducible expression in organisms, are integral components of the host innate immune system. In addition to their broad-spectrum antibacterial activity, natural AMPs also have many biological activities against fungi, viruses and parasites. Natural AMPs exert multiple immunomodulatory roles that may predominate under physiological conditions where they lose their microbicidal properties in serum and tissue environments. Increased drug resistance among microorganisms is occurring far more quickly than the discovery of new antibiotics. Natural AMPs have shown promise as ‘next generation antibiotics’ due to their broad-spectrum curative effects, low toxicity, the fact that they are not residual in animals, and the low rates of resistance exhibited by many pathogens. Many types of synthetic AMPs are currently being tested in clinical trials for the prevention and treatment of various diseases such as chemotherapy-associated infections, diabetic foot ulcers, catheter-related infections, and other conditions. Here, we provide an overview of the types and functions of natural AMPs and their role in combating microorganisms and different infectious and inflammatory diseases.     

Bi-functional peptides with both trypsin-inhibitory and antimicrobial activities are frequent defensive molecules in Ranidae amphibian skins

Amphibian skins act as the first line against noxious aggression by microorganisms, parasites, and predators. Anti-microorganism activity is an important task of amphibian skins. A large amount of gene-encoded antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) has been identified from amphibian skins. Only a few of small protease inhibitors have been found in amphibian skins. From skin secretions of 5 species (Odorrana livida, Hylarana nigrovittata, Limnonectes kuhlii, Odorrana grahami, and Amolops loloensis) of Ranidae frogs, 16 small serine protease inhibitor peptides have been purified and characterized. They have lengths of 17-20 amino acid residues (aa). All of them are encoded by precursors with length of 65-70 aa. These small peptides show strong trypsin-inhibitory abilities. Some of them can exert antimicrobial activities. They share the conserved GCWTKSXXPKPC fragment in their primary structures, suggesting they belong to the same families of peptide. Signal peptides of precursors encoding these serine protease inhibitors share obvious sequence similarity with those of precursors encoding AMPs from Ranidae frogs. The current results suggest that these small serine protease inhibitors are the common defensive compounds in frog skin of Ranidae as amphibian skin AMPs.     

Peptidomics and genomics analysis of novel antimicrobial peptides from the frog,Rana nigrovittata

Much attention has been paid on amphibian peptides for their wide-ranging pharmacological properties, clinical potential, and gene-encoded origin. More than 300 antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) from amphibians have been studied. Peptidomics and genomics analysis combined with functional test including microorganism killing, histamine-releasing, and mast cell degranulation was used to investigate antimicrobial peptide diversity. Thirty-four novel AMPs from skin secretions of Rana nigrovittata were identified in current work, and they belong to 9 families, including 6 novel families. Other three families are classified into rugosin, gaegurin, and temporin family of amphibian AMP, respectively. These AMPs share highly conserved preproregions including signal peptides and spacer acidic peptides, while greatly diversified on mature peptides structures. In this work, peptidomics combined with genomics analysis was confirmed to be an effective way to identify amphibian AMPs, especially novel families. Some AMPs reported here will provide leading molecules for designing novel antimicrobial agents.     

The therapeutic applications of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs): a patent review

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are small molecules with a broad spectrum of antibiotic activities against bacteria, yeasts, fungi, and viruses and cytotoxic activity on cancer cells, in addition to anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory activities. Therefore, AMPs have garnered interest as novel therapeutic agents. Because of the rapid increase in drug-resistant pathogenic microorganisms, AMPs from synthetic and natural sources have been developed using alternative antimicrobial strategies. This article presents a broad analysis of patents referring to the therapeutic applications of AMPs since 2009. The review focuses on the universal trends in the effective design, mechanism, and biological evolution of AMPs.     

Snake cathelicidin from Bungarus fasciatus is a potent peptide antibiotics

Background

Cathelicidins are a family of antimicrobial peptides acting as multifunctional effector molecules of innate immunity, which are firstly found in mammalians. Recently, several cathelicidins have also been found from chickens and fishes. No cathelicidins from other non-mammalian vertebrates have been reported.

Principal Findings

In this work, a cathelicidin-like antimicrobial peptide named cathelicidin-BF has been purified from the snake venoms of Bungarus fasciatus and its cDNA sequence was cloned from the cDNA library, which confirm the presence of cathelicidin in reptiles. As other cathelicidins, the precursor of cathelicidin-BF has cathelin-like domain at the N terminus and carry the mature cathelicidin-BF at the C terminus, but it has an atypical acidic fragment insertion between the cathelin-like domain and the C-terminus. The acidic fragment is similar to acidic domains of amphibian antimicrobial precursors. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that the snake cathelicidin had the nearest evolution relationship with platypus cathelicidin. The secondary structure of cathelicidin-BF investigated by CD and NMR spectroscopy in the presence of the helicogenic solvent TFE is an amphipathic α-helical conformation as many other cathelicidins. The antimicrobial activities of cathelicidin BF against forty strains of microorganisms were tested. Cathelicidin-BF efficiently killed bacteria and some fungal species including clinically isolated drug-resistance microorganisms. It was especially active against Gram-negative bacteria. Furthermore, it could exert antimicrobial activity against some saprophytic fungus. No hemolytic and cytotoxic activity was observed at the dose of up to 400 µg/ml. Cathelicidin-BF could exist stably in the mice plasma for at least 2.5 hours.

Conclusion

Discovery of snake cathelicidin with atypical structural and functional characterization offers new insights on the evolution of cathelicidins. Potent, broad spectrum, salt-independent antimicrobial activities make cathelicidin-BF an excellent candidate for clinical or agricultural antibiotics.     

Antimicrobials,Stress and Mutagenesis

Cationic antimicrobial peptides are ancient and ubiquitous immune effectors that multicellular organisms use to kill and police microbes whereas antibiotics are mostly employed by microorganisms. As antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) mostly target the cell wall, a microbial ‘Achilles heel’, it has been proposed that bacterial resistance evolution is very unlikely and hence AMPs are ancient ‘weapons’ of multicellular organisms. Here we provide a new hypothesis to explain the widespread distribution of AMPs amongst multicellular organism. Studying five antimicrobial peptides from vertebrates and insects, we show, using a classic Luria-Delbrück fluctuation assay, that cationic antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) do not increase bacterial mutation rates. Moreover, using rtPCR and disc diffusion assays we find that AMPs do not elicit SOS or rpoS bacterial stress pathways. This is in contrast to the main classes of antibiotics that elevate mutagenesis via eliciting the SOS and rpoS pathways. The notion of the ‘Achilles heel’ has been challenged by experimental selection for AMP-resistance, but our findings offer a new perspective on the evolutionary success of AMPs. Employing AMPs seems advantageous for multicellular organisms, as it does not fuel the adaptation of bacteria to their immune defenses. This has important consequences for our understanding of host-microbe interactions, the evolution of innate immune defenses, and also sheds new light on antimicrobial resistance evolution and the use of AMPs as drugs.     

Identification and characterization of antimicrobial peptides from skin of Amolops ricketti (Anura: Ranidae)

As one of large amphibian group, there are a total of 45 species of Amolops in the world. However, the antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) existing in this genus has not been extensively studied. In this study, cDNAs encoding five novel AMP precursors were cloned by screening the skin-derived cDNA library of Amolops ricketti, a frog species that exists in southern and western parts of China. Protein sequence analysis led to the identification of five deduced peptides, three belonging to the brevinin-1 family and two belonging to the brevinin-2 family of amphibian AMPs. Thus, they were named as brevinin-1RTa (FLPLLAGVVANFLPQIICKIARKC), brevinin-1RTb (FLGSLLGLVGKVVPTLFCKISKKC), brevinin-1RTc (FLGSLLGLVGKIVPTLICKISKKC), brevinin-2RTa (GLMSTLKDFGKTAAKEIAQSLLSTASCKLAKTC), and brevinin-2RTb (GILDTLKEFGKTAAKGIAQSLLSTASCKLAKTC), respectively. The purification of brevinin-1RTa, brevinin-1RTb, and brevinin-2RTb was carried out by RP-HPLC, and confirmed by the LC-MS/MS-based proteomics approach. All of the peptides displayed different antimicrobial potency against a variety of microorganisms. In addition, brevinin-2RTa and brevinin-2RTb were found to have relatively low hemolytic activity (>400μg/ml) against mammalian red blood cells in vitro, which could potentially be as candidates for developing novel anti-infection agents.