Comparison of bactericidal and cytotoxic activities of trichogin analogs.

ABSTRACT

Peptaibiotics are a group of membrane active peptides of fungal origin. They typically contain α-aminoisobutyric acid (Aib; 1-letter code, U) and other non-coded residues (Toniolo and Brückner, 2009; Neumann et al., 2015; Benedett et al., 1982) [1], [2], [3] stabilizing their helical structure. Peptaibols are peptaibiotics carrying a 1, 2-aminoalcohol at the C-terminus. When a fatty acid chain (of 8-10 carbon atoms) is present at their N-terminus, they are called lipopeptaibols (Toniolo et al., 2001; Degenkolb et al., 2003) [4], [5]. We found (Tavano et al., 2015) [6] that the lipopeptaibol trichogin displays no antibacterial effects up to 64 µM, against both Gram(-) and Gram(+) bacteria, but kills tumor and healthy human cells via a mechanism requiring both the C-terminal primary alcohol group and the N-terminal n-octanoyl moiety, with EC50s around 4-5 µM. However, the substitution of single Gly residues with Lys strongly improves anti-Gram(+) activity (Tavano et al., 2015; De Zotti, Biondi, Park et al., 2012; De Zotti, Biondi, Peggion et al., 2012) [6], [7], [8]. To further characterize the activity of trichogin analogs as antibiotics and cytotoxic agents, we here manipulated the peptide helix amphipathicity by means of two different substitutions (i) Aib to Leu (De Zotti et al., 2012) [7] or (ii) multiple Gly to Lys changes (Tavano et al., 2015; De Zotti, Biondi, Park et al., 2012; De Zotti, Biondi, Peggion, Formaggio et al., 2012; De Zotti, Biondi, Peggion, De Poli et al., 2012) [6], [7], [8], [9]. The antibacterial activity against four commensal or opportunistic bacterial species and the cytotoxicity against a panel of 9 healthy and tumor-derived eukaryotic cell types (including erythrocytes) are reported as MIC and EC50 (MTS - [3-(4, 5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-5-(3-carboxymethoxyphenyl)-2-(4-sulfophenyl)]-2H-tetrazolium- reduction and LDH - lactate dehydrogenase - release assay).