1. Beyond electrostatics: Antimicrobial peptide selectivity and the influence of cholesterol-mediated fluidity and lipid chain length on protegrin-1 activity
- Author
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Alan J. Waring, J. Michael Henderson, Indroneil Roy, Ka Yee C. Lee, K. Lam, Nishanth S. Iyengar, Eddie Maldonado, and Tiffany Suwatthee
- Subjects
0301 basic medicine ,Lipid Bilayers ,Static Electricity ,Antimicrobial peptides ,Biophysics ,Peptide ,Calorimetry ,Microscopy, Atomic Force ,01 natural sciences ,Biochemistry ,Membrane Lipids ,03 medical and health sciences ,chemistry.chemical_compound ,Anti-Infective Agents ,Phosphatidylcholine ,chemistry.chemical_classification ,010405 organic chemistry ,Cholesterol ,Cell Membrane ,Isothermal titration calorimetry ,Cell Biology ,Antimicrobial ,Anti-Bacterial Agents ,0104 chemical sciences ,030104 developmental biology ,Membrane ,chemistry ,Phosphatidylcholines ,Protegrin ,Peptides ,Antimicrobial Cationic Peptides - Abstract
Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are a promising class of innate host defense molecules for next-generation antibiotics, as they uniquely target and permeabilize membranes of pathogens. This selectivity has been explained by the electrostatic attraction between these predominantly cationic peptides and the bacterial membrane, which is heavily populated with anionic lipids. However, AMP-resistant bacteria have non-electrostatic countermeasures that modulate membrane rigidity and thickness. We explore how variations in physical properties affect the membrane affinity and disruption process of protegrin-1 (PG-1) in phosphatidylcholine (PC) membranes with altered lipid packing densities and thicknesses. From isothermal titration calorimetry and atomic force microscopy, our results showed that PG-1 could no longer insert into membranes of increasing cholesterol amounts nor into monounsaturated PC membranes of increasing thicknesses with similar fluidities. Prevention of PG-1's incorporation consequently made the membranes more resistant to peptide-induced structural transformations like pore formation. Our study provides evidence that AMP affinity and activity are strongly correlated with the fluidity and thickness of the membrane. A basic understanding of how physical mechanisms can regulate cell selectivity and resistance towards AMPs will aid in the development of new antimicrobial agents.
- Published
- 2019