Bactericidal activities and biochemical features of 16 antimicrobial peptides against bovine-mastitis causative pathogens

Abstract Mastitis, often caused by bacterial infection, is an inflammatory condition affecting the mammary glands. The condition is particularly prevalent in dairy cattle. Current treatment of bovine mastitis heavily relies on the use of antibiotics. To identify alternative solutions to antibiotic use, we evaluated the antimicrobial activity of 14 cathelicidins reported from 10 animal species. In conjunction, we assessed two bacteriocins against the bovine-mastitis causative bacterial panel, consisting of Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus cereus, Enterococcus faecalis, Streptococcus agalactiae, Streptococcus dysgalactiae, and Streptococcus equi. Among the antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), cc-CATH3, ML-CATH, and PD-CATH proved to be highly active (minimum inhibitory concentration of 2–41 μg/mL, 0.2–10.3 μM) against all bacterial strains in the panel and field isolates from milk, with elevated somatic cell counts (≥ 500,000 cells/mL). Of the AMPs tested in this study, ML-CATH presented the highest level of effectiveness in controlling mastitis-associated bacterial strains while also possessing minimal cytotoxicity and functional stability against pH change and a high salt condition. The results of in silico analyses on the biochemical features of 12 helical cathelicidins revealed that the charge of AMPs appears to be a major determinant in killing Gram-negative bacteria. Furthermore, we observed a unique motif, “N(n≥3)-P(n≥1)-N(n≥3)”, from the sequences of PMAP-36, cc-CATH3, ML-CATH, and PD-CATH that exhibits potent antimicrobial activity against a broad spectrum of bacteria compared to others. Our findings support the proposition that AMPs could serve as effective antimicrobial alternatives to conventional antibiotics in treating complex animal diseases caused by microbial infection, such as bovine mastitis.