Isolation and Purification of Active Antimicrobial Peptides from Hermetia illucens L., and Its Effects on CNE2 Cells

Abstract

Active antimicrobial peptide HI-3 was isolated and purified from the 5th instar larvae of Hermetia illucens L., and its effects on proliferation, apoptosis and migration of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (CNE2) cells were investigated. The expressions of telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) in CNE2 cells were also studied in vitro to elucidate the mechanism involved in the action of HI-3 on CNE2 cells. Results showed that three fractions (HI-1, HI-2, HI-3) were isolated from the hemolymph of H. illucens larvae. After purified by RP-HPLC, only HI-3 showed the inhibitory activities to four strains of bacteria. It was also showed that HI-3 could effectively inhibit the proliferation of CNE2 cells in a dose- and time-dependent manner. Apoptosis of CNE2 cells was observed in the treatment with 160 μg/ml HI-3, and the early apoptosis rate up to 27.59 ± 1.14%. However, no significantly inhibitory effects and apoptosis were found on human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUV-C). Moreover, HI-3 could significantly reduce the migration ability of CNE2 cells when compared with that of the control. On the other hand, the levels of mRNA and protein of hTERT in the HI-3 treatment were all significantly lower than that of the control. Results indicated that HI-3 could inhibit the proliferation of CNE2 cells and induce the apoptosis of CNE2 cells by down-regulating the telomerase activity in CNE2 cells, while no obvious effect was occurred on HUV-C. It inferred that HI-3 is a potential anti-tumor drug with low toxicity to normal cells.Summary StatementAn active antimicrobial peptide HI-3 was isolated and purified.Inhibitory proliferation of CNE2 cells, but no effect on normal cells.A potential antitumoral drug.

Bacterial Outer Membrane Permeability Increase Underlies the Bactericidal Effect of Fatty Acids From Hermetia illucens (Black Soldier Fly) Larvae Fat Against Hypermucoviscous Isolates of Klebsiella pneumoniae

“…Reports of AMPs extracted from H. illucens larvae being safe for normal human cell lines (Tian et al, 2018), as well as the fact that MICs of H. illucens larvae extract against E. coli and S. aureus were lower than those in normal animal cells were in line with our results (Lee et al, 2020). Four Cameronian plant extracts showed no toxicity when they were incubated for 48 h with HEK293 normal human kidney cell lines (Somaida et al, 2020).…”

Antimicrobial peptide HI‐3 from Hermetia illucens alleviates inflammation in lipopolysaccharide‐stimulated RAW264.7 cells via suppression of the nuclear factor kappa‐B signaling pathway

“…Papiliocin, an antimicrobial peptide isolated from Swallowtail butterfly ( Papilio xuthus ), can inhibit the expression of TNF‐α and IL‐1β, as well as the expression of proteins in the NF‐κB pathway in LPS‐stimulated RAW264.7 cells 12 . In our previous study, antimicrobial peptide HI‐3 extracted from hemolymph of Hermetia illucens larvae not only had a strong inhibitory effect on Staphylococcus aureus , Bacillus subtilis , Escherichia coli , and Bacillus aerogenes , but also effectively inhibited the proliferation of human nasopharyngeal cancer cell (CNE2) and human colorectal adenocarcinoma cell (HCT‐8) in vitro 13,14 . Moreover, it exhibited immunomodulatory effects on RAW264.7 cells 15 .…”

Beyond the protein concept: health aspects of using edible insects on animals

“…AMPs' mode of action is usually based on their cationic nature enabling them to form pores in the microbe cell membranes making them natural alternatives to medicinal treatments reducing the risk of developing microbial resistance (Zhang and Gallo, 2016). Moreover, peptides extracted from the larvae of MD and HI were shown to have an anti-tumoral activity (Sun et al, 2014;Tian et al, 2018).…”