New Antimicrobial Peptide with Two CRAC Motifs: Activity against Escherichia coli and Bacillus subtilis

Due to the emergence of multiple antibiotic resistance in many pathogens, the studies on new antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) have become a priority scientific direction in fundamental and applied biology. Diverse mechanisms underlie the antibacterial action of AMPs. Among them are the effects that AMPs cause on bacterial cell membranes. In this work, we studied the antibacterial activity of a peptide named P4 with the following sequence RTKLWEMLVELGNMDKAVKLWRKLKR that was constructed from two alpha-helical fragments of the influenza virus protein M1 and containing two cholesterol-recognizing amino-acid consensus (CRAC) motifs. Previously we have shown that 50 μM of peptide P4 is toxic to cultured mouse macrophages. In the present work, we have found that peptide P4 inhibits the growth of E. coli and B. subtilis strains at concentrations that are significantly lower than the cytotoxic concentration that was found for macrophages. The half-maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) for B. subtilis and E. coli cells were 0.07 ± 0.01 μM and 1.9 ± 0.4 μM, respectively. Scramble peptide without CRAC motifs did not inhibit the growth of E. coli cells and was not cytotoxic for macrophages but had an inhibitory effect on the growth of B. subtilis cells (IC50 0.4 ± 0.2 μM). A possible involvement of CRAC motifs and membrane sterols in the mechanism of the antimicrobial action of the P4 peptide is discussed. We assume that in the case of the Gram-negative bacterium E. coli, the mechanism of the toxic action of peptide P4 is related to the interaction of CRAC motifs with sterols that are present in the bacterial membrane, whereas in the case of the Gram-positive bacterium B. subtilis, which lacks sterols, the toxic action of peptide P4 is based on membrane permeabilization through the interaction of the peptide cationic domain and anionic lipids of the bacterial membrane. Whatever the mechanism can be, we report antimicrobial activity of the peptide P4 against the representatives of Gram-positive (B. subtilis) and Gram-negative (E. coli) bacteria.