Insect antimicrobial peptides show potentiating functional interactions against Gram-negative bacteria.
- Rahnamaeian M Department of Bioresources, Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology, Winchester Strasse 2, Giessen 35394, Germany.
- Cytryńska M Department of Immunobiology, Institute of Biology and Biochemistry, Maria Curie-Sklodowska University, Akademicka Street 19, Lublin 20-033, Poland.
- Zdybicka-Barabas A Department of Immunobiology, Institute of Biology and Biochemistry, Maria Curie-Sklodowska University, Akademicka Street 19, Lublin 20-033, Poland.
- Dobslaff K Institute of Bioanalytical Chemistry, Faculty of Chemistry and Mineralogy and Center of Biotechnology and Biomedicine, University of Leipzig, Deutscher Platz 5, Leipzig 04103, Germany.
- Wiesner J Department of Bioresources, Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology, Winchester Strasse 2, Giessen 35394, Germany.
- Twyman RM Department of Bioresources, Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology, Winchester Strasse 2, Giessen 35394, Germany TRM Ltd, PO Box 93, York YO43 3WE, UK.
- Zuchner T Institute of Bioanalytical Chemistry, Faculty of Chemistry and Mineralogy and Center of Biotechnology and Biomedicine, University of Leipzig, Deutscher Platz 5, Leipzig 04103, Germany.
- Sadd BM School of Biological Sciences, Illinois State University, Campus Box 4120, Normal, IL 61790, USA.
- Regoes RR ETH Zürich, Institute of Integrative Biology, ETH-Zentrum CHN, Universitätsstrasse 16, Zürich 8092, Switzerland.
- Schmid-Hempel P ETH Zürich, Institute of Integrative Biology, ETH-Zentrum CHN, Universitätsstrasse 16, Zürich 8092, Switzerland.
- Vilcinskas A Department of Bioresources, Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology, Winchester Strasse 2, Giessen 35394, Germany Institute of Phytopathology and Applied Zoology, Justus-Liebig-University of Giessen, Heinrich-Buff-Ring 26-32, Giessen 35392, Germany andreas.vilcinskas@agrar.uni-giessen.de.
- 2015-04-03
Published in:
- Proceedings. Biological sciences. - 2015
abaecin
antimicrobial peptides
bumble bees
hymenoptaecin
innate immunity
insects
Amino Acid Sequence
Animals
Anti-Infective Agents
Antimicrobial Cationic Peptides
Bees
Escherichia coli
Insect Proteins
Sequence Alignment
Species Specificity
English
Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) and proteins are important components of innate immunity against pathogens in insects. The production of AMPs is costly owing to resource-based trade-offs, and strategies maximizing the efficacy of AMPs at low concentrations are therefore likely to be advantageous. Here, we show the potentiating functional interaction of co-occurring insect AMPs (the bumblebee linear peptides hymenoptaecin and abaecin) resulting in more potent antimicrobial effects at low concentrations. Abaecin displayed no detectable activity against Escherichia coli when tested alone at concentrations of up to 200 μM, whereas hymenoptaecin affected bacterial cell growth and viability but only at concentrations greater than 2 μM. In combination, as little as 1.25 μM abaecin enhanced the bactericidal effects of hymenoptaecin. To understand these potentiating functional interactions, we investigated their mechanisms of action using atomic force microscopy and fluorescence resonance energy transfer-based quenching assays. Abaecin was found to reduce the minimal inhibitory concentration of hymenoptaecin and to interact with the bacterial chaperone DnaK (an evolutionarily conserved central organizer of the bacterial chaperone network) when the membrane was compromised by hymenoptaecin. These naturally occurring potentiating interactions suggest that combinations of AMPs could be used therapeutically against Gram-negative bacterial pathogens that have acquired resistance to common antibiotics.
- Language
-
- English
- Open access status
- hybrid
- Identifiers
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- DOI 10.1098/rspb.2015.0293
- PMID 25833860
- Persistent URL
- https://sonar.ch/global/documents/250286
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