These tools will no longer be maintained as of December 31, 2024. Archived website can be found here. PubMed4Hh GitHub repository can be found here. Contact NLM Customer Service if you have questions.


Pubmed for Handhelds

PUBMED FOR HANDHELDS

Search MEDLINE/PubMed

  • Title: A novel cysteine-free venom peptide with strong antimicrobial activity against antibiotics-resistant pathogens from the scorpion Opistophthalmus glabrifrons.
    Author: Bao A, Zhong J, Zeng XC, Nie Y, Zhang L, Peng ZF.
    Journal: J Pept Sci; 2015 Oct; 21(10):758-64. PubMed ID: 26251012.
    Abstract:
    Antibiotic-resistant bacteria, such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus, pose serious threat to human health. The outbreak of antibiotic-resistant pathogens in recent years emphasizes once again the urgent need for the development of new antimicrobial agents. Here, we discovered a novel antimicrobial peptide from the scorpion Opistophthalmus glabrifrons, which was referred to as Opisin. Opisin consists of 19 amino acid residues without disulfide bridges. It is a cationic, amphipathic, and α-helical molecule. Protein sequence homology search revealed that Opisin shares 42.1-5.3% sequence identities to the 17/18-mer antimicrobial peptides from scorpions. Antimicrobial assay showed that Opisin is able to potently inhibit the growth of the tested Gram-positive bacteria with the minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) values of 4.0-10.0 μM; in contrast, it possesses much lower activity against the tested Gram-negative bacteria and a fungus. It is interesting to see that Opisin is able to strongly inhibit the growth of methicillin- and vancomycin-resistant pathogens with the MICs ranging from 2.0 to 4.0 μM and from 4.0 to 6.0 μM, respectively. We found that at a concentration of 5 × MIC, Opisin completely killed all the cultured methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. These results suggest that Opisin is a promising therapeutic candidate for the treatment of the antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections.
    [Abstract] [Full Text] [Related] [New Search]