1. Identification and Characterization of CC-AMP1-like and CC-AMP2-like Peptides in Capsicumspp.
- Author
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Culver, Kevin D., Sadecki, Patric W., Jackson, Jessica K., Brown, Zoe A., Hnilica, Megan E., Wu, Jingyun, Shaw, Lindsey N., Wommack, Andrew J., and Hicks, Leslie M.
- Abstract
Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are compounds with a variety of bioactive properties. Especially promising are their antibacterial activities, often toward drug-resistant pathogens. Across different AMP sources, AMPs expressed within plants are relatively underexplored with a limited number of plant AMP families identified. Recently, we identified the novel AMPs CC-AMP1 and CC-AMP2 in ghost pepper plants (Capsicum chinensex frutescens), exerting promising antibacterial activity and not classifying into any known plant AMP family. Herein, AMPs related to CC-AMP1 and CC-AMP2 were identified within both Capsicum annuumand Capsicum baccatum. In silicopredictions throughout plants were utilized to illustrate that CC-AMP1-like and CC-AMP2-like peptides belong to two broader AMP families, with three-dimensional structural predictions indicating that CC-AMP1-like peptides comprise a novel subfamily of α-hairpinins. The antibacterial activities of several closely related CC-AMP1-like peptides were compared with a truncated version of CC-AMP1 possessing significantly more activity than the full peptide. This truncated peptide was further characterized to possess broad-spectrum antibacterial activity against clinically relevant ESKAPE pathogens. These findings illustrate the value in continued study of plant AMPs toward characterization of novel AMP families, with CC-AMP1-like peptides possessing promising bioactivity.
- Published
- 2024
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