Insights into the mechanism of action of two analogues of aurein 2.2.

The naturally occurring host defense peptide (HDP), aurein 2.2, secreted by the amphibian Litoria aurea, acts as a moderate antibacterial, affecting Gram positive bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus by forming selective ion pores. In a quest to find more active analogues of aurein 2.2, peptides 73 and 77 were discovered. These peptides were rich in arginine and tryptophan and found to have MICs of 4 μg/mL. Here we examined what impact the increased charge from +2 to +3 and a slight increase in hydrophobic moment relative to aurein 2.2 had on the mechanism of action of these two analogues. Using a time-kill assay, both peptides 73 and 77 were found to kill bacteria more effectively than the parent peptide. Using solution CD and NMR, the peptides were found to not adopt a continuous α-helical structure, i.e. the analogues were not helical from residue 1-13 like the parent peptide. Results obtained from oriented CD (OCD), DiSC

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Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.