Synthese en toepassing van een lipofiel aminozuurderivaat voor het verbeteren van de membraanaffiniteit van antimicrobiële peptiden

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To increase the potential of membrane-acting peptides as possible novel drug-like compounds by increasing lipophilicity and thereby enhancing membrane affinity. DESIGN: An Fmoc-protected enantiomerically pure lipophilic amino acid (Fmoc-Lad-OH), which contains a nine carbon atom hydrophobic side chain, was designed. Fmoc-Lad-OH can be introduced into any peptide sequence using standard solid phase peptide synthesis to increase the lipophilicity of a peptide without sacrificing important polar segments of a peptide like for instance the N and C-termini. The antimicrobial decapeptide anoplin was chosen as a model peptide to test the hypothesis. METHODS: Fmoc-Lad-OH was prepared via organic synthesis and incorporated into the anoplin peptide sequence using solid-phase peptide synthesis followed by reversed-phase HPLC purification. Biological activity was evaluated using microtiter dilution bacterial growth assays, haemolytic assays and membrane vesicle leakage experiments. RESULTS: All three lipophilic analogues show a dramatic increase in antimicrobial activity: up to 4-8 times better for Escherichia coli (Gram-negative] and over one order of magnitude for Staphylococcus aureus (Gram-positive) compared to anoplin. Although the haemolytic activity was increased for the lipophilic analogues, the concentration at which 50% lysis will occur (EC50) was still one order of magnitude higher than the determined MICs. In the membrane vesicle leakage experiments the lipophilic analogues showed a higher lytic activity than anoplin, in agreement with the observed MIC values. CONCLUSION: Introduction of Lad into anoplin clearly showed a positive effect, which suggests that Fmoc-Lad-OH could be used as a general approach to increase membrane affinity of membrane-acting peptides.