Part:BBa_K1919000

The coding sequence of antimicrobial peptide CecropinXJ

Antimicrobial peptide CecropinXJ belongs to AMP family Cecropin, a group of small basic polypeptides mainly found in the hemolymph of insects, consist of 31-39 amino acid residues and have a broad spectrum, high heat stability and potent bacteriostatic activity.

Sequence and Features

Assembly Compatibility:

• 10
  COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[10]
• 12
  COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[12]
• 21
  COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[21]
• 23
  COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[23]
• 25
  COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[25]
• 1000
  COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[1000]

Biology

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are a group of peptides that play roles in the innate immune system to protect the host from invading pathogens [1]. AMPs have minimal toxicity and low sensitivity effects to the host [2], which means antimicrobial peptides have the potential to be used to replace antibiotics in the future. Thus, the detrimental effects of antibiotics overuse will be released.

Cecropins, a group of small AMPs mainly found in the hemolymph of insects, consist of 31 39 amino acid residues and have a broad spectrum, high heat stability and potent bacteriostatic activity [3-5]. CecropinXJ (Part BBa_K1919000) is a member of the Cecropin family, which was first cloned from the larvae of the Xinjiang silkworm (Bombyx mori). Previous researches have determined the complete amino acid sequence of this molecule [6]. It has been demonstrated that CecropinXJ could be expressed in eukaryotic expression system such as Pichia pastoris [7] or prokaryotic expression system such as E.coli [8]. What’s more, CecropinXJ exhibited to have various activities such as antibacterial activity against both Gram‑positive and Gram-negative bacteria, as well as antifungal activity [8]. These characteristics indicate that CecropinXJ is an ideal antimicrobial substance to be used to treat foot diseases caused by microbes.

Results

Considering the fact that an antimicrobial peptide expressed in bacteria may be cytotoxic to the host or subjected to degradation by host-derived peptidases [11,12], we used the recombinant expression system to overcome the potential problems ——fusing the DNA coding sequence of CecropinXJ with the sequence of a bacterial thioredoxin gene exists in the pET32a(+) expression system [3,4]. To construct recombinant pET32a-cecropinXJ expression vector (Fig.1B), we used artificially synthetic CecropinXJ synthesized by Tsingke Ltd. (Fig.1A). Subsequently, CecropinXJ and pET32a plasmid were subjected to enzymatic digestion with EcoRI and XhoI, and ligated using T4 DNA ligase.

[[File:SCU-China 2016 1.png [1] Boman HG: Peptide antibiotics and their role in innate immunity. Annu Rev Immunol 13: 61-92, 1995.

[2] Devine DA and Hancock RE: Cationic peptides: distribution and mechanisms of resistance. Curr Pharm Des 8: 703-714, 2002.

[3] Boman HG, Wade D, Boman IA, Wåhlin B and Merrifield RB: Antibacterial and antimalarial properties of peptides that are cecropin-melittin hybrids. FEBS Lett 259: 103-106, 1989.

[4] Moore AJ, Devine DA and Bibby MC: Preliminary experimental anticancer activity of cecropins. Pept Res 7: 265-269, 1994.

[5] Hancock RE and Lehrer R: Cationic peptides: a new source of antibiotics. Trends Biotechnol 16: 82-88, 1998.

[6] Li JY, Zhang FC and Ma ZH: Prokaryotic expression of cecropin gene isolated from the silk worm Bombyx mori Xinjiang race and antibacterial activity of fusion cecropin. Acta Entomol Sin 47: 407-411, 2004 (In Chinese).

[7] Tang X, Wang H, Kelaimu R, Mao XF and Liu ZY: Molecular cloning, expression of cecropin-XJ gene from silkworm and antibacterial activity in Pichia pastoris. Biotechnology 21: 26-31, 2011 (In Chinese).

[8] Xia L, Zhang F, Liu Z, Ma J and Yang J: Expression and characterization of cecropinXJ, a bioactive antimicrobial peptide from Bombyx mori (Bombycidae, Lepidoptera) in Escherichia coli. Experimental and Therapeutic Medicine 5: 1745-1751, 2013.