Antimicrobial and Anti-inflammatory Effects of a Novel Peptide From the Skin of Frog Microhyla pulchra

Maolin Tian; Junfang Liu; Jinwei Chai; Jiena Wu; Xueqing Xu

doi:10.3389/fphar.2021.783108

Antimicrobial and Anti-inflammatory Effects of a Novel Peptide From the Skin of Frog Microhyla pulchra

Front Pharmacol. 2021 Dec 16:12:783108. doi: 10.3389/fphar.2021.783108. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Maolin Tian^{1

2}, Junfang Liu¹, Jinwei Chai², Jiena Wu², Xueqing Xu²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Zhujiang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.
² Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of New Drug Screening, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.

Abstract

Brevinins are an important antimicrobial peptide (AMP) family identified in the skin of Ranidae frogs and generally contain a characteristic ranabox structure at their C-terminal sequence. Herein a novel AMP named brevinin-2MP has been identified from the skin of the frog Microhyla pulchra by molecular cloning. Brevinin-2MP (GVITDTLKGVAKTVAAELLRKAHCKLTNSC) with a high amphipathic α-helix in sodium dodecyl sulfate solutions can destroy bacterial cell membrane and kill microbes. Furthermore, brevinin-2MP has been found to inhibit the lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced expression of pro-inflammatory NO, MCP-1, IL-6, and TNF-α via binding unidentified targets on the cell membrane and consequently suppressing the activation of MAPK/NF-κB signaling cascades induced by LPS in RAW 264.7 cells. Consistently, brevinin-2MP significantly alleviates the acute inflammatory response in carrageenan-induced mice paw. In conclusion, brevinin-2MP with anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial properties will be an ideal candidate drug molecule for bacterial inflammation treatment.

Keywords: LPS; Microhyla pulchra; amphibian; anti-inflammation; antimicrobial peptide; brevinin-2.