Porcine β defensin 2(pBD2)is a cationic 37-amino acid antimicrobial peptide with disulfide bonds. Synthetic pBD2 had broad antimicrobial activity against pathogenic bacteria, and thus pBD2 could be a good candidate as a bactericidal agent for pigs. This study reported the successful recombinant expression of pBD2 in Escherichia coli and analysis of its antimicrobial activity, its hemolytic activity, salt-tolerance and thermal stability as well. The pBD2 gene, obtained by RT-PCR using the tongue total RNA as a template and cloned into pET30a expression vector, was transformed into E. coli BL21 (DE3) plysS. The recombinant pBD2 was expressed after induction by IPTG and purified by His tag affinity column with 95% purity. The recombinant pBD2 exhibited antimicrobial activity against both Gram-positive S. aureus and Gram-negative E. coli including the multi-resistant E. coli. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of recombinant pBD2 against tested bacteria was 10 μg/mL, and the recombinant pBD2 could kill 50% E. coli at 14.39 μg/mL and S. aureus at 21.1 μg/mL. In addition, pBD2 showed low hemolytic activity, salt-tolerance and thermal stability, the properties would be important for its application in practice.
Porcine β defensin 2 (pBD2) is a small, cationic and amphiphilic antimicrobial peptide. It has broad antimicrobial activities against bacteria and plays an important role in host defense. In order to enhance its antimicrobial activity and better understand the effect of positively charged residues on its activity, we substituted eight amino acid residues with arginine or lysine respectively. All mutants were cloned and expressed in BL21 (DE3) plysS and the mutant proteins were then purified. These mutant versions had higher positive charges but similar structural configurations compared to the wild-type pBD2. Moreover, these mutant proteins showed different antimicrobial activities against E. coli and S. aureus. The mutant I4R of pBD2 had the highest antimicrobial activity. In addition, all the mutants showed low hemolytic activities. Our results indicated that the positively charged residues were not the only factor that influenced antimicrobial activity, but other factors such as distribution of these residues on the surface of defensins might also contribute to their antimicrobial potency.
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