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Bonvin E, Personne H, Paschoud T, Reusser J, Gan BH, Luscher A, Köhler T, van Delden C, Reymond JL. Antimicrobial Peptide-Peptoid Hybrids with and without Membrane Disruption. ACS Infect Dis 2023; 9:2593-2606. [PMID: 38062792 PMCID: PMC10714400 DOI: 10.1021/acsinfecdis.3c00421] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/18/2023] [Revised: 11/06/2023] [Accepted: 11/06/2023] [Indexed: 12/18/2023]
Abstract
Among synthetic analogues of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) under investigation to address antimicrobial resistance, peptoids (N-alkylated oligoglycines) have been reported to act both by membrane disruption and on intracellular targets. Here we gradually introduced peptoid units into the membrane-disruptive undecapeptide KKLLKLLKLLL to test a possible transition toward intracellular targeting. We found that selected hybrids containing up to five peptoid units retained the parent AMP's α-helical folding, membrane disruption, and antimicrobial effects against Gram-negative bacteria including multidrug-resistant (MDR) strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Klebsiella pneumoniae while showing reduced hemolysis and cell toxicities. Furthermore, some hybrids containing as few as three peptoid units as well as the full peptoid lost folding, membrane disruption, hemolysis, and cytotoxicity but displayed strong antibacterial activity under dilute medium conditions typical for proline-rich antimicrobial peptides (PrAMPs), pointing to intracellular targeting. These findings parallel previous reports that partially helical amphiphilic peptoids are privileged oligomers for antibiotic development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Etienne Bonvin
- Department
of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Bern, Freiestrasse 3, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland
| | - Hippolyte Personne
- Department
of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Bern, Freiestrasse 3, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland
| | - Thierry Paschoud
- Department
of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Bern, Freiestrasse 3, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland
| | - Jérémie Reusser
- Department
of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Bern, Freiestrasse 3, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland
| | - Bee-Ha Gan
- Department
of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Bern, Freiestrasse 3, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland
| | - Alexandre Luscher
- Department
of Microbiology and Molecular Medicine, University of Geneva, CH-1211 Geneva, Switzerland
- Service of
Infectious Diseases, University Hospital
of Geneva, CH-1211 Geneva, Switzerland
| | - Thilo Köhler
- Department
of Microbiology and Molecular Medicine, University of Geneva, CH-1211 Geneva, Switzerland
- Service of
Infectious Diseases, University Hospital
of Geneva, CH-1211 Geneva, Switzerland
| | - Christian van Delden
- Department
of Microbiology and Molecular Medicine, University of Geneva, CH-1211 Geneva, Switzerland
- Service of
Infectious Diseases, University Hospital
of Geneva, CH-1211 Geneva, Switzerland
| | - Jean-Louis Reymond
- Department
of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Bern, Freiestrasse 3, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland
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Personne H, Siriwardena TN, Javor S, Reymond JL. Dipropylamine for 9-Fluorenylmethyloxycarbonyl (Fmoc) Deprotection with Reduced Aspartimide Formation in Solid-Phase Peptide Synthesis. ACS OMEGA 2023; 8:5050-5056. [PMID: 36777595 PMCID: PMC9910063 DOI: 10.1021/acsomega.2c07861] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/09/2022] [Accepted: 01/11/2023] [Indexed: 06/18/2023]
Abstract
Herein, we report dipropylamine (DPA) as a fluorenylmethyloxycarbonyl (Fmoc) deprotection reagent to strongly reduce aspartimide formation compared to piperidine (PPR) in high-temperature (60 °C) solid-phase peptide synthesis (SPPS). In contrast to PPR, DPA is readily available, inexpensive, low toxicity, and nonstench. DPA also provides good yields in SPPS of non-aspartimide-prone peptides and peptide dendrimers.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hippolyte Personne
- Department
of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Bern, Freiestrasse 3, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland
| | - Thissa N. Siriwardena
- Department
of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Bern, Freiestrasse 3, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland
- Shanghai
Space Peptides Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., Shanghai 201210, China
| | - Sacha Javor
- Department
of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Bern, Freiestrasse 3, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland
| | - Jean-Louis Reymond
- Department
of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Bern, Freiestrasse 3, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland
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3
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Cai X, Orsi M, Capecchi A, Köhler T, van Delden C, Javor S, Reymond JL. An intrinsically disordered antimicrobial peptide dendrimer from stereorandomized virtual screening. CELL REPORTS. PHYSICAL SCIENCE 2022; 3:101161. [PMID: 36632208 PMCID: PMC9780108 DOI: 10.1016/j.xcrp.2022.101161] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/11/2022] [Revised: 10/21/2022] [Accepted: 11/02/2022] [Indexed: 06/17/2023]
Abstract
Membrane-disruptive amphiphilic antimicrobial peptides behave as intrinsically disordered proteins by being unordered in water and becoming α-helical in contact with biological membranes. We recently discovered that synthesizing the α-helical antimicrobial peptide dendrimer L-T25 ((KL)8(KKL)4(KLL)2 KKLL) using racemic amino acids to form stereorandomized sr-T25, an analytically pure mixture of all possible diastereoisomers of L-T25, preserved antibacterial activity but abolished hemolysis and cytotoxicity, pointing to an intrinsically disordered antibacterial conformation and an α-helical cytotoxic conformation. In this study, to identify non-toxic intrinsically disordered homochiral antimicrobial peptide dendrimers (AMPDs), we surveyed sixty-three sr-analogs of sr-T25 selected by virtual screening. One of the analogs, sr-X18 ((KL)8(KLK)4(KLL)2 KLLL), lost antibacterial activity as L-enantiomer and became hemolytic due to α-helical folding. By contrast, the L- and D-enantiomers of sr-X22 ((KL)8(KL)4(KKLL)2 KLKK) were equally antibacterial, non-hemolytic, and non-toxic, implying an intrinsically disordered bioactive conformation. Screening stereorandomized libraries may be generally useful to identify or optimize intrinsically disordered bioactive peptides.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xingguang Cai
- Department of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Bern, Freiestrasse 3, 3012 Bern, Switzerland
| | - Markus Orsi
- Department of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Bern, Freiestrasse 3, 3012 Bern, Switzerland
| | - Alice Capecchi
- Department of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Bern, Freiestrasse 3, 3012 Bern, Switzerland
| | - Thilo Köhler
- Department of Microbiology and Molecular Medicine, University of Geneva, Service of Infectious Diseases, University Hospital of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
| | - Christian van Delden
- Department of Microbiology and Molecular Medicine, University of Geneva, Service of Infectious Diseases, University Hospital of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
| | - Sacha Javor
- Department of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Bern, Freiestrasse 3, 3012 Bern, Switzerland
| | - Jean-Louis Reymond
- Department of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Bern, Freiestrasse 3, 3012 Bern, Switzerland
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Zakharova E, Orsi M, Capecchi A, Reymond JL. Machine Learning Guided Discovery of Non-Hemolytic Membrane Disruptive Anti-Cancer Peptides. ChemMedChem 2022; 17:e202200291. [PMID: 35880810 PMCID: PMC9541320 DOI: 10.1002/cmdc.202200291] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/25/2022] [Revised: 06/29/2022] [Indexed: 12/05/2022]
Abstract
Most antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) and anticancer peptides (ACPs) fold into membrane disruptive cationic amphiphilic α‐helices, many of which are however also unpredictably hemolytic and toxic. Here we exploited the ability of recurrent neural networks (RNN) to distinguish active from inactive and non‐hemolytic from hemolytic AMPs and ACPs to discover new non‐hemolytic ACPs. Our discovery pipeline involved: 1) sequence generation using either a generative RNN or a genetic algorithm, 2) RNN classification for activity and hemolysis, 3) selection for sequence novelty, helicity and amphiphilicity, and 4) synthesis and testing. Experimental evaluation of thirty‐three peptides resulted in eleven active ACPs, four of which were non‐hemolytic, with properties resembling those of the natural ACP lasioglossin III. These experiments show the first example of direct machine learning guided discovery of non‐hemolytic ACPs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Elena Zakharova
- University of Bern: Universitat Bern, Departement of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, SWITZERLAND
| | - Markus Orsi
- University of Bern: Universitat Bern, Departement of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, SWITZERLAND
| | - Alice Capecchi
- University of Bern: Universitat Bern, Departement of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, SWITZERLAND
| | - Jean-Louis Reymond
- Universität Bern: Universitat Bern, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Freiestrasse 3, 3012, Switzerland, 3012, Bern, SWITZERLAND
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He T, Qu R, Zhang J. Current synthetic chemistry towards cyclic antimicrobial peptides. J Pept Sci 2021; 28:e3387. [PMID: 34931393 DOI: 10.1002/psc.3387] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/31/2021] [Revised: 11/03/2021] [Accepted: 11/23/2021] [Indexed: 12/31/2022]
Abstract
Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) have great potentials for developing novel antibiotics against multi-drug resistant (MDR) bacteria. However, the clinical application of AMPs is limited due to their poor protease stability and high hemolytic toxicity. Various strategies have been widely explored to improve the pharmacological properties of natural or artificial antimicrobial peptides, including D- or non-natural amino acid residue replacement, backbone modification, cyclization, PEGlytion, and lipidation. Among others, peptide cyclization, which has been widely applied to enhance the biostability and target selectivity of bioactive peptide, is a very appealing and promising strategy for developing novel antibiotics based on AMPs. Herein, we summarize the current strategies for synthesizing cyclic antimicrobial peptides and the resulting influence of peptide cyclization on the biological activities.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tong He
- Innovative Drug Research Centre (IDRC), Chongqing Key Laboratory of Natural Product Synthesis and Drug Research, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Chongqing University, Chongqing, China
| | - Rui Qu
- Innovative Drug Research Centre (IDRC), Chongqing Key Laboratory of Natural Product Synthesis and Drug Research, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Chongqing University, Chongqing, China
| | - Jinqiang Zhang
- Innovative Drug Research Centre (IDRC), Chongqing Key Laboratory of Natural Product Synthesis and Drug Research, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Chongqing University, Chongqing, China
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