Amino acid residues 201-205 in C-terminal acidic tail region plays a crucial role in antibacterial activity of HMGB1

BACKGROUND: Antibacterial activity is a novel function of high-mobility group box 1 (HMGB1). However, the functional site for this new effect is presently unknown. METHODS AND RESULTS: In this study, recombinant human HMGB1 A box and B box (rHMGB1 A box, rHMGB1 B box), recombinant human HMGB1 (rHMGB1) and the truncated C-terminal acidic tail mutant (tHMGB1) were prepared by the prokaryotic expression system. The C-terminal acidic tail (C peptide) was synthesized, which was composed of 30 amino acid residues. Antibacterial assays showed that both the full length rHMGB1 and the synthetic C peptide alone could efficiently inhibit bacteria proliferation, but rHMGB1 A box and B box, and tHMGB1 lacking the C-terminal acidic tail had no antibacterial function. These results suggest that C-terminal acidic tail is the key region for the antibacterial activity of HMGB1. Furthermore, we prepared eleven different deleted mutants lacking several amino acid residues in C-terminal acidic tail of HMGB1. Antibacterial assays of these mutants demonstrate that the amino acid residues 201-205 in C-terminal acidic tail region is the core functional site for the antibacterial activity of the molecule. CONCLUSION: In sum, these results define the key region and the crucial site in HMGB1 for its antibacterial function, which is helpful to illustrating the antibacterial mechanisms of HMGB1.