Rational design of syn-safencin, a novel linear antimicrobial peptide derived from the circular bacteriocin safencin AS-48.

ABSTRACT: Bacteriocins hold unprecedented promise as a largely untapped source of antibiotic alternatives in the age of multidrug resistance. Here, we describe the first approach to systematically design variants of a novel AS-48 bacteriocin homologue, which we have termed safencin AS-48, from Bacillus safensis, to gain insights into engineering improved activity of bacteriocins. A library of synthetic peptides in which systematic amino acid substitutions to vary the periodicity and abundance of polar, acidic, aliphatic, and hydrophobic residues were generated for a total of 96 novel peptide variants of a single bacteriocin candidate. Using this method, we identified nine synthetic safencin (syn-safencin) variants with broad and potent antimicrobial activities with minimal inhibitory concentrations

SUBMITTER: Fields FR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8887552 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature