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Elastase-Activated Antimicrobial Peptide for a Safer Pulmonary Treatment of Cystic Fibrosis Infections

As bioactive small proteins with antimicrobial and immunomodulatory activities that are naturally produced by all living organisms, antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) have a marked potential as next-generation antibiotics. However, their development as antibacterial agents is limited by low stability and...

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Autores principales: Degasperi, Margherita, Sgarra, Riccardo, Mardirossian, Mario, Pacor, Sabrina, Maschio, Massimo, Scocchi, Marco
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8944445/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35326782
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/antibiotics11030319
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author Degasperi, Margherita
Sgarra, Riccardo
Mardirossian, Mario
Pacor, Sabrina
Maschio, Massimo
Scocchi, Marco
author_facet Degasperi, Margherita
Sgarra, Riccardo
Mardirossian, Mario
Pacor, Sabrina
Maschio, Massimo
Scocchi, Marco
author_sort Degasperi, Margherita
collection PubMed
description As bioactive small proteins with antimicrobial and immunomodulatory activities that are naturally produced by all living organisms, antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) have a marked potential as next-generation antibiotics. However, their development as antibacterial agents is limited by low stability and cytotoxicity. D-BMAP18, a membrane-permeabilizing antimicrobial peptide composed of D-amino acids, has shown good antibacterial and anti-inflammatory activities but also a non-negligible cytotoxicity against eukaryotic cell lines. In this study, a prodrug has been developed that extends the peptide with a negatively charged, inactivating sequence containing the cleavage site for neutrophil elastase (NE). The ultimate goal was to allow the activation of D-BMAP18 by endogenous elastase only at the site of infection/inflammation, enabling a slow and targeted release of the pharmacologically active peptide. In vitro activation of Pro-D-BMAP18 was confirmed using purified NE. Its antimicrobial and cytotoxic activities were tested in the presence and absence of elastase and compared to those of the parental form. The prodrug had minimal activity in the absence of elastase, while its proteolysis product retained an appreciable antimicrobial activity but lower cytotoxicity. Moreover, Pro-D-BMAP18 was found to be correctly converted to D-BMAP18 in the presence of CF sputum as a model of the lung environment and showed good antimicrobial activity under these conditions.
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spelling pubmed-89444452022-03-25 Elastase-Activated Antimicrobial Peptide for a Safer Pulmonary Treatment of Cystic Fibrosis Infections Degasperi, Margherita Sgarra, Riccardo Mardirossian, Mario Pacor, Sabrina Maschio, Massimo Scocchi, Marco Antibiotics (Basel) Article As bioactive small proteins with antimicrobial and immunomodulatory activities that are naturally produced by all living organisms, antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) have a marked potential as next-generation antibiotics. However, their development as antibacterial agents is limited by low stability and cytotoxicity. D-BMAP18, a membrane-permeabilizing antimicrobial peptide composed of D-amino acids, has shown good antibacterial and anti-inflammatory activities but also a non-negligible cytotoxicity against eukaryotic cell lines. In this study, a prodrug has been developed that extends the peptide with a negatively charged, inactivating sequence containing the cleavage site for neutrophil elastase (NE). The ultimate goal was to allow the activation of D-BMAP18 by endogenous elastase only at the site of infection/inflammation, enabling a slow and targeted release of the pharmacologically active peptide. In vitro activation of Pro-D-BMAP18 was confirmed using purified NE. Its antimicrobial and cytotoxic activities were tested in the presence and absence of elastase and compared to those of the parental form. The prodrug had minimal activity in the absence of elastase, while its proteolysis product retained an appreciable antimicrobial activity but lower cytotoxicity. Moreover, Pro-D-BMAP18 was found to be correctly converted to D-BMAP18 in the presence of CF sputum as a model of the lung environment and showed good antimicrobial activity under these conditions. MDPI 2022-02-28 /pmc/articles/PMC8944445/ /pubmed/35326782 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/antibiotics11030319 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Degasperi, Margherita
Sgarra, Riccardo
Mardirossian, Mario
Pacor, Sabrina
Maschio, Massimo
Scocchi, Marco
Elastase-Activated Antimicrobial Peptide for a Safer Pulmonary Treatment of Cystic Fibrosis Infections
title Elastase-Activated Antimicrobial Peptide for a Safer Pulmonary Treatment of Cystic Fibrosis Infections
title_full Elastase-Activated Antimicrobial Peptide for a Safer Pulmonary Treatment of Cystic Fibrosis Infections
title_fullStr Elastase-Activated Antimicrobial Peptide for a Safer Pulmonary Treatment of Cystic Fibrosis Infections
title_full_unstemmed Elastase-Activated Antimicrobial Peptide for a Safer Pulmonary Treatment of Cystic Fibrosis Infections
title_short Elastase-Activated Antimicrobial Peptide for a Safer Pulmonary Treatment of Cystic Fibrosis Infections
title_sort elastase-activated antimicrobial peptide for a safer pulmonary treatment of cystic fibrosis infections
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8944445/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35326782
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/antibiotics11030319
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