engleski

Design optimisation of novel peptide antibiotics predicted to have high selectivity against G-negative bacteria

Competing with nature in creating effective peptide antibiotics, specific software has been created (Designer). Next logical step was to optimise it. Several calculations have been done, all for very short peptide antibiotics (16 – 23 AA), but long enough to bridge the cell membrane. The software offered as output glycine-rich peptides. We selected three of them as very promising ones. The criteria were a) the existence of at least three small motives (GxxxG or GxxxxxxG) in the sequence, b) net charge of +4/+5, c) high predicted therapeutic index and d) high value of hydrophobic moment for helical conformation in the membrane. The Split server (http://split.pmfst.hr/split/) was consulted which, based on our earlier investigations, confirmed the theory that selected peptides are promising antimicrobial peptides (Figure 1).

peptide antibiotics; design principles; Gram-negative bacteria

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