Brevinin-2 Drug Family—New Applied Peptide Candidates Against Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus and Their Effects on Lys-7 Expression of Innate Immune Pathway DAF-2/DAF-16 in Caenorhabditis elegans

Generation of truncated derivatives through in silico enzymatic digest of peptide GV30 target MRSA both in vitro and in vivo

•

A novel host-defence peptide GV30 was identified from the frog skin secretion of Hylarana guentheri.

•

Seven short AMPs were generated by in silico enzymatic digest of GV30 using an online proteomic bioinformatic tool PeptideCutter in ExPASy server.

•

Two truncated products, GV23 and GV21, exhibited an improved antibacterial effect against MRSA in vitro and demonstrated a faster bactericidal effect than the parent peptide.

•

GV 21 was found to have a better in vivo anti-MRSA activity and retain the good antibacterial activity under salt and serum conditions, along with lower toxicity.

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) causing serious hospital-acquired infections and skin infections has become a “superbug” in clinical treatment. Although the clinical treatment of MRSA is continuously improving, due to its unceasing global spread, MRSA has produced much heated discussion and focused study, therefore suggesting an urgent task to find new antibacterial drugs to combat this issue. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are used as the last-resort drugs for treating multidrug-resistant bacterial infections, but their utilisation is still limited due to their low stability and often strong toxicity.

Here, we evaluated the structure and the bioactivity of an AMP, GV30, derived from the frog skin secretions of Hylarana guentheri, and designed seven truncated derivatives based on the presence of cleavage sites for trypsin using an online proteomic bioinformatic resource PeptideCutter tool. We investigated the anti-MRSA effect, toxicity and salt- and serum-resistance of these peptides. Interestingly, the structure–activity relationship revealed that removing “Rana box” loop could significantly improve the bactericidal speed on MRSA. Among these derivatives, GV21 (GVIFNALKGVAKTVAAQLLKK-NH₂), because of its faster antibacterial effect, lower toxicity, and retains the good antibacterial activity and stability of the parent peptide, is considered to become a new potential antibacterial candidate against MRSA.