1
|
Seixas Feio JA, de Oliveira ECL, de Sales CDS, da Costa KS, e Lima AHL. Investigating molecular descriptors in cell-penetrating peptides prediction with deep learning: Employing N, O, and hydrophobicity according to the Eisenberg scale. PLoS One 2024; 19:e0305253. [PMID: 38870192 PMCID: PMC11175476 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0305253] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/11/2023] [Accepted: 05/27/2024] [Indexed: 06/15/2024] Open
Abstract
Cell-penetrating peptides comprise a group of molecules that can naturally cross the lipid bilayer membrane that protects cells, sharing physicochemical and structural properties, and having several pharmaceutical applications, particularly in drug delivery. Investigations of molecular descriptors have provided not only an improvement in the performance of classifiers but also less computational complexity and an enhanced understanding of membrane permeability. Furthermore, the employment of new technologies, such as the construction of deep learning models using overfitting treatment, promotes advantages in tackling this problem. In this study, the descriptors nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrophobicity on the Eisenberg scale were investigated, using the proposed ConvBoost-CPP composed of an improved convolutional neural network with overfitting treatment and an XGBoost model with adjusted hyperparameters. The results revealed favorable to the use of ConvBoost-CPP, having as input nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrophobicity together with ten other descriptors previously investigated in this research line, showing an increase in accuracy from 88% to 91.2% in cross-validation and 82.6% to 91.3% in independent test.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Juliana Auzier Seixas Feio
- Laboratório de Inteligência Computacional e Pesquisa Operacional, Campus Belém, Instituto de Tecnologia, Universidade Federal do Pará, Pará, Brazil
| | - Ewerton Cristhian Lima de Oliveira
- Laboratório de Inteligência Computacional e Pesquisa Operacional, Campus Belém, Instituto de Tecnologia, Universidade Federal do Pará, Pará, Brazil
- Instituto Tecnológico Vale, Belém, Pará, Brazil
| | - Claudomiro de Souza de Sales
- Laboratório de Inteligência Computacional e Pesquisa Operacional, Campus Belém, Instituto de Tecnologia, Universidade Federal do Pará, Pará, Brazil
| | - Kauê Santana da Costa
- Laboratório de Simulação Computacional, Campus Marechal Rondom, Instituto de Biodiversidade, Universidade Federal do Oeste do Pará, Santarém, Pará, Brazil
| | - Anderson Henrique Lima e Lima
- Laboratório de Planejamento e Desenvolvimento de Fármacos, Instituto de Ciências Exatas e Naturais, Universidade Federal do Pará, Belém, Pará, Brazil
| |
Collapse
|
2
|
Aguilera-Puga MDC, Cancelarich NL, Marani MM, de la Fuente-Nunez C, Plisson F. Accelerating the Discovery and Design of Antimicrobial Peptides with Artificial Intelligence. Methods Mol Biol 2024; 2714:329-352. [PMID: 37676607 DOI: 10.1007/978-1-0716-3441-7_18] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 09/08/2023]
Abstract
Peptides modulate many processes of human physiology targeting ion channels, protein receptors, or enzymes. They represent valuable starting points for the development of new biologics against communicable and non-communicable disorders. However, turning native peptide ligands into druggable materials requires high selectivity and efficacy, predictable metabolism, and good safety profiles. Machine learning models have gradually emerged as cost-effective and time-saving solutions to predict and generate new proteins with optimal properties. In this chapter, we will discuss the evolution and applications of predictive modeling and generative modeling to discover and design safe and effective antimicrobial peptides. We will also present their current limitations and suggest future research directions, applicable to peptide drug design campaigns.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Mariana D C Aguilera-Puga
- Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del IPN (CINVESTAV-IPN), Unidad de Genómica Avanzada, Laboratorio Nacional de Genómica para la Biodiversidad (Langebio), Irapuato, Guanajuato, Mexico
- CINVESTAV-IPN, Unidad Irapuato, Departamento de Biotecnología y Bioquímica, Irapuato, Guanajuato, Mexico
| | - Natalia L Cancelarich
- Instituto Patagónico para el Estudio de los Ecosistemas Continentales (IPEEC), Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Puerto Madryn, Argentina
| | - Mariela M Marani
- Instituto Patagónico para el Estudio de los Ecosistemas Continentales (IPEEC), Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Puerto Madryn, Argentina
| | - Cesar de la Fuente-Nunez
- Machine Biology Group, Departments of Psychiatry and Microbiology, Institute for Biomedical Informatics, Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
- Departments of Bioengineering and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Science, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
- Penn Institute for Computational Science, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
| | - Fabien Plisson
- Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del IPN (CINVESTAV-IPN), Unidad de Genómica Avanzada, Laboratorio Nacional de Genómica para la Biodiversidad (Langebio), Irapuato, Guanajuato, Mexico.
- CINVESTAV-IPN, Unidad Irapuato, Departamento de Biotecnología y Bioquímica, Irapuato, Guanajuato, Mexico.
| |
Collapse
|
3
|
Szymczak P, Szczurek E. Artificial intelligence-driven antimicrobial peptide discovery. Curr Opin Struct Biol 2023; 83:102733. [PMID: 37992451 DOI: 10.1016/j.sbi.2023.102733] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/17/2023] [Revised: 10/06/2023] [Accepted: 10/30/2023] [Indexed: 11/24/2023]
Abstract
Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) emerge as promising agents against antimicrobial resistance, providing an alternative to conventional antibiotics. Artificial intelligence (AI) revolutionized AMP discovery through both discrimination and generation approaches. The discriminators aid in the identification of promising candidates by predicting key peptide properties such as activity and toxicity, while the generators learn the distribution of peptides and enable sampling novel AMP candidates, either de novo or as analogs of a prototype peptide. Moreover, the controlled generation of AMPs with desired properties is achieved by discriminator-guided filtering, positive-only learning, latent space sampling, as well as conditional and optimized generation. Here we review recent achievements in AI-driven AMP discovery, highlighting the most exciting directions.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Paulina Szymczak
- Faculty of Mathematics, Informatics and Mechanics, University of Warsaw, Banacha 2, 02-097, Warsaw, Poland.
| | - Ewa Szczurek
- Faculty of Mathematics, Informatics and Mechanics, University of Warsaw, Banacha 2, 02-097, Warsaw, Poland.
| |
Collapse
|
4
|
Ye Y, Shen Y, Wang J, Li D, Zhu Y, Zhao Z, Pan Y, Wang Y, Liu X, Wan J. SIGANEO: Similarity network with GAN enhancement for immunogenic neoepitope prediction. Comput Struct Biotechnol J 2023; 21:5538-5543. [PMID: 38034402 PMCID: PMC10681954 DOI: 10.1016/j.csbj.2023.10.050] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/19/2023] [Revised: 10/26/2023] [Accepted: 10/27/2023] [Indexed: 12/02/2023] Open
Abstract
Target selection of the personalized cancer neoantigen vaccine, which is highly dependent on computational prediction algorithms, is crucial for its clinical efficacy. Due to the limited number of experimentally validated immunogenic neoepitopes as well as the complexity of neoantigens in eliciting T cell response, the accuracy of neoepitope immunogenicity prediction methods requires persistent efforts for improvement. We present a deep learning framework for neoepitope immunogenicity prediction - SIGANEO by integrating GAN-like network with similarity network to address issues of missing values and limited data concerning neoantigen prediction. This framework exhibits superior performance over competing machine-learning-based neoantigen prediction algorithms over an independent test dataset from TESLA consortium. Particularly for the clinical setting of neoantigen vaccine where only the top 10 and 20 predictions are selected for vaccine production, SIGANEO achieves significantly better accuracy for predicting experimentally validated neoepitopes. Our work demonstrates that deep learning techniques can greatly boost the accuracy of target identification for cancer neoantigen vaccine.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Yilin Ye
- Shenzhen Neocura Biotechnology Co. Ltd., Shenzhen 518055, China
| | - Yiming Shen
- Shenzhen Neocura Biotechnology Co. Ltd., Shenzhen 518055, China
| | - Jian Wang
- Shenzhen Neocura Biotechnology Co. Ltd., Shenzhen 518055, China
| | - Dong Li
- Shenzhen Neocura Biotechnology Co. Ltd., Shenzhen 518055, China
| | - Yu Zhu
- Shenzhen Neocura Biotechnology Co. Ltd., Shenzhen 518055, China
| | - Zhao Zhao
- Shenzhen Neocura Biotechnology Co. Ltd., Shenzhen 518055, China
| | - Youdong Pan
- Shenzhen Neocura Biotechnology Co. Ltd., Shenzhen 518055, China
| | - Yi Wang
- Shenzhen Neocura Biotechnology Co. Ltd., Shenzhen 518055, China
| | - Xing Liu
- The Center for Microbes, Development and Health, Key Laboratory of Molecular Virology and Immunology, Institut Pasteur of Shanghai, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200031, China
| | - Ji Wan
- Shenzhen Neocura Biotechnology Co. Ltd., Shenzhen 518055, China
| |
Collapse
|
5
|
Wang Y, Xie Y, Luo Y, Jia P, Wei J, Zhang J, Yan W, Huang J. iASMP: An interpretable in-silico predictive tool focusing on species-specific antimicrobial peptides. J Pept Sci 2023; 29:e3490. [PMID: 36994602 DOI: 10.1002/psc.3490] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/03/2022] [Revised: 03/02/2023] [Accepted: 03/25/2023] [Indexed: 03/31/2023]
Abstract
Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), a crucial part of the innate immune system, have been exploited as promising candidates for antibacterial agents. Many researchers have been devoting their efforts to develop novel AMPs in recent decades. In this term, many computational approaches have been developed to identify potential AMPs accurately. However, finding peptides specific to a particular bacterial species is challenging. Streptococcus mutans is a pathogen with an apparent cariogenic effect, and it is of great significance to study AMP that inhibit S. mutans for the prevention and treatment of caries. In this study, we proposed a sequence-based machine learning model, namely iASMP, to exactly identify potential anti-S. mutans peptides (ASMPs). After collecting ASMPs, the performances of models were compared by utilizing multiple feature descriptors and different classification algorithms. Among the baseline predictors, the model integrating the extra trees (ET) algorithm and the hybrid features exhibited optimal results. The feature selection method was utilized to remove redundant feature information to improve the model performance further. Finally, the proposed model achieved the maximum accuracy (ACC) of 0.962 on the training dataset and performed on the testing dataset with an ACC of 0.750. The results demonstrated that iASMP had an excellent predictive performance and was suitable for identifying potential ASMP. Furthermore, we also visualized the selected features and rationally explained the impact of individual features on the model output.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Yuqiang Wang
- Key Laboratory of Dental Maxillofacial Reconstruction and Biological Intelligence Manufacturing of Gansu Province, School of Stomatology, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, Gansu, China
| | - Yihao Xie
- The Institute of Pharmacology, Key Laboratory of Preclinical Study for New Drugs of Gansu Province, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, Gansu, China
| | - Yang Luo
- Key Laboratory of Dental Maxillofacial Reconstruction and Biological Intelligence Manufacturing of Gansu Province, School of Stomatology, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, Gansu, China
| | - Pengfei Jia
- The Institute of Pharmacology, Key Laboratory of Preclinical Study for New Drugs of Gansu Province, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, Gansu, China
| | - Jiaqi Wei
- Key Laboratory of Dental Maxillofacial Reconstruction and Biological Intelligence Manufacturing of Gansu Province, School of Stomatology, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, Gansu, China
| | - Jie Zhang
- Key Laboratory of Dental Maxillofacial Reconstruction and Biological Intelligence Manufacturing of Gansu Province, School of Stomatology, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, Gansu, China
| | - Wenjin Yan
- The Institute of Pharmacology, Key Laboratory of Preclinical Study for New Drugs of Gansu Province, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, Gansu, China
| | - Jinqi Huang
- The Affiliated Hospital of Guangdong Medical University, Zhanjiang, Guangdong, China
| |
Collapse
|
6
|
Szymczak P, Możejko M, Grzegorzek T, Jurczak R, Bauer M, Neubauer D, Sikora K, Michalski M, Sroka J, Setny P, Kamysz W, Szczurek E. Discovering highly potent antimicrobial peptides with deep generative model HydrAMP. Nat Commun 2023; 14:1453. [PMID: 36922490 PMCID: PMC10017685 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-36994-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 22] [Impact Index Per Article: 22.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/27/2022] [Accepted: 02/28/2023] [Indexed: 03/17/2023] Open
Abstract
Antimicrobial peptides emerge as compounds that can alleviate the global health hazard of antimicrobial resistance, prompting a need for novel computational approaches to peptide generation. Here, we propose HydrAMP, a conditional variational autoencoder that learns lower-dimensional, continuous representation of peptides and captures their antimicrobial properties. The model disentangles the learnt representation of a peptide from its antimicrobial conditions and leverages parameter-controlled creativity. HydrAMP is the first model that is directly optimized for diverse tasks, including unconstrained and analogue generation and outperforms other approaches in these tasks. An additional preselection procedure based on ranking of generated peptides and molecular dynamics simulations increases experimental validation rate. Wet-lab experiments on five bacterial strains confirm high activity of nine peptides generated as analogues of clinically relevant prototypes, as well as six analogues of an inactive peptide. HydrAMP enables generation of diverse and potent peptides, making a step towards resolving the antimicrobial resistance crisis.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Paulina Szymczak
- Faculty of Mathematics, Informatics and Mechanics, University of Warsaw, Stefana Banacha 2, 02-097, Warsaw, Poland
| | - Marcin Możejko
- Faculty of Mathematics, Informatics and Mechanics, University of Warsaw, Stefana Banacha 2, 02-097, Warsaw, Poland
| | - Tomasz Grzegorzek
- Faculty of Mathematics, Informatics and Mechanics, University of Warsaw, Stefana Banacha 2, 02-097, Warsaw, Poland
- NVIDIA, 2788 San Tomas Expressway, Santa Clara, CA, 95051, USA
| | - Radosław Jurczak
- Faculty of Mathematics, Informatics and Mechanics, University of Warsaw, Stefana Banacha 2, 02-097, Warsaw, Poland
| | - Marta Bauer
- Department of Inorganic Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, Medical University of Gdańsk, Al. Gen. J. Hallera 107, 80-416, Gdańsk, Poland
| | - Damian Neubauer
- Department of Inorganic Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, Medical University of Gdańsk, Al. Gen. J. Hallera 107, 80-416, Gdańsk, Poland
| | - Karol Sikora
- Department of Inorganic Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, Medical University of Gdańsk, Al. Gen. J. Hallera 107, 80-416, Gdańsk, Poland
| | - Michał Michalski
- The Centre of New Technologies, University of Warsaw, Stefana Banacha 2c, 02-097, Warsaw, Poland
| | - Jacek Sroka
- Faculty of Mathematics, Informatics and Mechanics, University of Warsaw, Stefana Banacha 2, 02-097, Warsaw, Poland
| | - Piotr Setny
- The Centre of New Technologies, University of Warsaw, Stefana Banacha 2c, 02-097, Warsaw, Poland
| | - Wojciech Kamysz
- Department of Inorganic Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, Medical University of Gdańsk, Al. Gen. J. Hallera 107, 80-416, Gdańsk, Poland
| | - Ewa Szczurek
- Faculty of Mathematics, Informatics and Mechanics, University of Warsaw, Stefana Banacha 2, 02-097, Warsaw, Poland.
| |
Collapse
|
7
|
Cardoso PHDO, Boleti APDA, Silva PSE, Mukoyama LTH, Guindo AS, de Moraes LFRN, de Oliveira CFR, Macedo MLR, Carvalho CME, de Castro AP, Migliolo L. Evaluation of a Novel Synthetic Peptide Derived from Cytolytic Mycotoxin Candidalysin. Toxins (Basel) 2022; 14:toxins14100696. [PMID: 36287965 PMCID: PMC9610734 DOI: 10.3390/toxins14100696] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/08/2022] [Revised: 09/03/2022] [Accepted: 09/08/2022] [Indexed: 12/04/2022] Open
Abstract
The importance of neuroinflammation in neurology is becoming increasingly apparent. In addition to neuroinflammatory diseases such as multiple sclerosis, the role of neuroinflammation has been identified in many non-inflammatory neurological disorders such as stroke, epilepsy, and cancer. The immune response within the brain involves the presence of CNS resident cells; mainly glial cells, such as microglia, the CNS resident macrophages. We evaluated the peptide Ca-MAP1 bioinspired on the C. albicans immature cytolytic toxin candidalysin to develop a less hemolytic peptide with anti-neuroinflammatory, antibacterial, and cytotoxic activity against tumor cells. In silico and in vitro studies were performed at various concentrations. Ca-MAP1 exhibits low hemolytic activity at lower concentrations and was not cytotoxic to MRC-5 and BV-2 cells. Ca-MAP1 showed activity against Acinetobacter baumannii, Escherichia coli ATCC, E. coli KPC, Klebsiella pneumoniae ATCC, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Staphylococcus aureus ATCC. Furthermore, Ca-MAP1 exhibits anti-neuroinflammatory activity in the BV-2 microglia model, with 93.78% inhibition of nitrate production at 18.1 µM. Ca-MAP1 presents cytotoxic activity against tumor cell line NCI-H292 at 36.3 μM, with an IC50 of 38.4 µM. Ca-MAP1 demonstrates results that qualify it to be evaluated in the next steps to promote the control of infections and provide an alternative antitumor therapy.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Pedro Henrique de Oliveira Cardoso
- S-Inova Biotech, Programa de Pós-graduação em Biotecnologia, Universidade Católica Dom Bosco, Campo Grande 79117-900, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil
| | - Ana Paula de Araújo Boleti
- S-Inova Biotech, Programa de Pós-graduação em Biotecnologia, Universidade Católica Dom Bosco, Campo Grande 79117-900, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil
| | - Patrícia Souza e Silva
- S-Inova Biotech, Programa de Pós-graduação em Biotecnologia, Universidade Católica Dom Bosco, Campo Grande 79117-900, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil
| | - Lincoln Takashi Hota Mukoyama
- S-Inova Biotech, Programa de Pós-graduação em Biotecnologia, Universidade Católica Dom Bosco, Campo Grande 79117-900, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil
| | - Alexya Sandim Guindo
- S-Inova Biotech, Programa de Pós-graduação em Biotecnologia, Universidade Católica Dom Bosco, Campo Grande 79117-900, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil
| | - Luiz Filipe Ramalho Nunes de Moraes
- S-Inova Biotech, Programa de Pós-graduação em Biotecnologia, Universidade Católica Dom Bosco, Campo Grande 79117-900, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil
| | - Caio Fernando Ramalho de Oliveira
- Laboratório de Purificação de Proteínas e suas Funções Biológicas, Unidade de Tecnologia de Alimentos e da Saúde Pública, Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso do Sul, Campo Grande 79070-900, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil
| | - Maria Ligia Rodrigues Macedo
- Laboratório de Purificação de Proteínas e suas Funções Biológicas, Unidade de Tecnologia de Alimentos e da Saúde Pública, Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso do Sul, Campo Grande 79070-900, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil
| | - Cristiano Marcelo Espínola Carvalho
- S-Inova Biotech, Programa de Pós-graduação em Biotecnologia, Universidade Católica Dom Bosco, Campo Grande 79117-900, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil
| | - Alinne Pereira de Castro
- S-Inova Biotech, Programa de Pós-graduação em Biotecnologia, Universidade Católica Dom Bosco, Campo Grande 79117-900, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil
| | - Ludovico Migliolo
- S-Inova Biotech, Programa de Pós-graduação em Biotecnologia, Universidade Católica Dom Bosco, Campo Grande 79117-900, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil
- Correspondence: ; Tel.: +55-67-33123473
| |
Collapse
|
8
|
Synthetic Amphipathic β-Sheet Temporin-Derived Peptide with Dual Antibacterial and Anti-Inflammatory Activities. Antibiotics (Basel) 2022; 11:antibiotics11101285. [PMID: 36289944 PMCID: PMC9598925 DOI: 10.3390/antibiotics11101285] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/02/2022] [Revised: 09/15/2022] [Accepted: 09/19/2022] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Temporin family is one of the largest among antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), which act mainly by penetrating and disrupting the bacterial membranes. To further understand the relationship between the physical-chemical properties and their antimicrobial activity and selectivity, an analogue of Temporin L, [Nle1, dLeu9, dLys10]TL (Nle-Phe-Val-Pro-Trp-Phe-Lys-Phe-dLeu-dLys-Arg-Ile-Leu-CONH2) has been developed in the present work. The design strategy consisted of the addition of a norleucine residue at the N-terminus of the lead peptide sequence, [dLeu9, dLys10]TL, previously developed by our group. This modification promoted an increase of peptide hydrophobicity and, interestingly, more efficient activity against both Gram-positive and Gram-negative strains, without affecting human keratinocytes and red blood cells survival compared to the lead peptide. Thus, this novel compound was subjected to biophysical studies, which showed that the peptide [Nle1, dLeu9, dLys10]TL is unstructured in water, while it adopts β-type conformation in liposomes mimicking bacterial membranes, in contrast to its lead peptide forming α-helical aggregates. After its aggregation in the bacterial membrane, [Nle1, dLeu9, dLys10]TL induced membrane destabilization and deformation. In addition, the increase of peptide hydrophobicity did not cause a loss of anti-inflammatory activity of the peptide [Nle1, dLeu9, dLys10]TL in comparison with its lead peptide. In this study, our results demonstrated that positive net charge, optimum hydrophobic−hydrophilic balance, and chain length remain the most important parameters to be addressed while designing small cationic AMPs.
Collapse
|
9
|
Lima RM, Rathod BB, Tiricz H, Howan DHO, Al Bouni MA, Jenei S, Tímár E, Endre G, Tóth GK, Kondorosi É. Legume Plant Peptides as Sources of Novel Antimicrobial Molecules Against Human Pathogens. Front Mol Biosci 2022; 9:870460. [PMID: 35755814 PMCID: PMC9218685 DOI: 10.3389/fmolb.2022.870460] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/06/2022] [Accepted: 05/18/2022] [Indexed: 12/22/2022] Open
Abstract
Antimicrobial peptides are prominent components of the plant immune system acting against a wide variety of pathogens. Legume plants from the inverted repeat lacking clade (IRLC) have evolved a unique gene family encoding nodule-specific cysteine-rich NCR peptides acting in the symbiotic cells of root nodules, where they convert their bacterial endosymbionts into non-cultivable, polyploid nitrogen-fixing cells. NCRs are usually 30–50 amino acids long peptides having a characteristic pattern of 4 or 6 cysteines and highly divergent amino acid composition. While the function of NCRs is largely unknown, antimicrobial activity has been demonstrated for a few cationic Medicago truncatula NCR peptides against bacterial and fungal pathogens. The advantages of these plant peptides are their broad antimicrobial spectrum, fast killing modes of actions, multiple bacterial targets, and low propensity to develop resistance to them and no or low cytotoxicity to human cells. In the IRLC legumes, the number of NCR genes varies from a few to several hundred and it is possible that altogether hundreds of thousands of different NCR peptides exist. Due to the need for new antimicrobial agents, we investigated the antimicrobial potential of 104 synthetic NCR peptides from M. truncatula, M. sativa, Pisum sativum, Galega orientalis and Cicer arietinum against eight human pathogens, including ESKAPE bacteria. 50 NCRs showed antimicrobial activity with differences in the antimicrobial spectrum and effectivity. The most active peptides eliminated bacteria at concentrations from 0.8 to 3.1 μM. High isoelectric point and positive net charge were important but not the only determinants of their antimicrobial activity. Testing the activity of shorter peptide derivatives against Acinetobacter baumannii and Candida albicans led to identification of regions responsible for the antimicrobial activity and provided insight into their potential modes of action. This work provides highly potent lead molecules without hemolytic activity on human blood cells for novel antimicrobial drugs to fight against pathogens.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Rui M Lima
- Institute of Plant Biology, Biological Research Centre, ELKH, Szeged, Hungary
| | | | - Hilda Tiricz
- Institute of Plant Biology, Biological Research Centre, ELKH, Szeged, Hungary
| | - Dian H O Howan
- Department of Medical Chemistry, Albert Szent-Györgyi Medical School, University of Szeged, Szeged, Hungary
| | | | - Sándor Jenei
- Institute of Plant Biology, Biological Research Centre, ELKH, Szeged, Hungary
| | - Edit Tímár
- Institute of Plant Biology, Biological Research Centre, ELKH, Szeged, Hungary
| | - Gabriella Endre
- Institute of Plant Biology, Biological Research Centre, ELKH, Szeged, Hungary
| | - Gábor K Tóth
- Department of Medical Chemistry, Albert Szent-Györgyi Medical School, University of Szeged, Szeged, Hungary
| | - Éva Kondorosi
- Institute of Plant Biology, Biological Research Centre, ELKH, Szeged, Hungary
| |
Collapse
|
10
|
Ripperda T, Yu Y, Verma A, Klug E, Thurman M, Reid SP, Wang G. Improved Database Filtering Technology Enables More Efficient Ab Initio Design of Potent Peptides against Ebola Viruses. Pharmaceuticals (Basel) 2022; 15:ph15050521. [PMID: 35631348 PMCID: PMC9143221 DOI: 10.3390/ph15050521] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/29/2022] [Revised: 04/16/2022] [Accepted: 04/22/2022] [Indexed: 02/07/2023] Open
Abstract
The rapid mutations of viruses such as SARS-CoV-2 require vaccine updates and the development of novel antiviral drugs. This article presents an improved database filtering technology for a more effective design of novel antiviral agents. Different from the previous approach, where the most probable parameters were obtained stepwise from the antimicrobial peptide database, we found it possible to accelerate the design process by deriving multiple parameters in a single step during the peptide amino acid analysis. The resulting peptide DFTavP1 displays the ability to inhibit Ebola virus. A deviation from the most probable peptide parameters reduces antiviral activity. The designed peptides appear to block viral entry. In addition, the amino acid signature provides a clue to peptide engineering to gain cell selectivity. Like human cathelicidin LL-37, our engineered peptide DDIP1 inhibits both Ebola and SARS-CoV-2 viruses. These peptides, with broad antiviral activity, may selectively disrupt viral envelopes and offer the lasting efficacy required to treat various RNA viruses, including their emerging mutants.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
| | | | | | | | | | - St Patrick Reid
- Correspondence: (S.P.R.); (G.W.); Tel.: +1-(402)-559-3644 (S.P.R.); +1-(402)-559-4176 (G.W.)
| | - Guangshun Wang
- Correspondence: (S.P.R.); (G.W.); Tel.: +1-(402)-559-3644 (S.P.R.); +1-(402)-559-4176 (G.W.)
| |
Collapse
|