Structural and Functional Characterization of the Newly Designed Antimicrobial Peptide Crabrolin21

Francesca Cantini; Paola Giannì; Sara Bobone; Cassandra Troiano; Hugo van Ingen; Renato Massoud; Nicoletta Perini; Luciana Migliore; Philippe Savarin; Charles Sanders; Lorenzo Stella; Marco Sette

doi:10.3390/membranes13030365

Structural and Functional Characterization of the Newly Designed Antimicrobial Peptide Crabrolin21

Membranes (Basel). 2023 Mar 22;13(3):365. doi: 10.3390/membranes13030365.

Authors

Francesca Cantini^{1

2}, Paola Giannì^{3

4}, Sara Bobone³, Cassandra Troiano³, Hugo van Ingen⁵, Renato Massoud⁶, Nicoletta Perini⁷, Luciana Migliore^{7

8}, Philippe Savarin⁹, Charles Sanders^{10

11

12}, Lorenzo Stella³, Marco Sette^{3

9}

Affiliations

¹ Magnetic Resonance Center (CERM), University of Florence, Sesto Fiorentino, 50019 Firenze, Italy.
² Department of Chemistry, University of Florence, Sesto Fiorentino, 50019 Firenze, Italy.
³ Department of Chemical Sciences and Technology, University of Rome Tor Vergata, 00133 Rome, Italy.
⁴ Fondazione G.I.M.EM.A.-Franco Mandelli Onlus, 00182 Rome, Italy.
⁵ NMR Spectroscopy, Bijvoet Center for Biomolecular Research, Utrecht University, Padualaan 8, 3584 CH Utrecht, The Netherlands.
⁶ Department of Experimental Medicine, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Viale della Ricerca Scientifica, 00133 Rome, Italy.
⁷ Department of Biology, University of Rome Tor Vergata, 00133 Rome, Italy.
⁸ eCampus University, 22060 Novedrate, Italy.
⁹ Chemistry Structures Properties of Biomaterials and Therapeutic Agents Laboratory (CSPBAT), Nanomédecine Biomarqueurs Détection Team (NBD), Sorbonne Paris Nord University, The National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), UMR 7244, 74 Rue Marcel Cachin, CEDEX, 93017 Bobigny, France.
¹⁰ Department of Biochemistry, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, TN 37232, USA.
¹¹ Center for Structural Biology, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, TN 37232, USA.
¹² Department of Medicine, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, TN 37232, USA.

Abstract

(1) Background: antimicrobial resistance is becoming a dramatic problem for public health, and the design of new antimicrobial agents is an active research area. (2) Methods: based on our previous work, we designed an improved version of the crabrolin peptide and characterized its functional and structural properties with a wide range of techniques. (3) Results: the newly designed peptide, crabrolin21, is much more active than the previous ones and shows specific selectivity towards bacterial cells. (4) Conclusions: crabrolin21 shows interesting properties and deserves further studies.

Keywords: CD spectroscopy; NMR spectroscopy; antimicrobial resistance; membrane specificity.

Abstract

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