Nature Biotechnology
23, 1008 - 1012 (2005)
Published online: 24 July 2005; | doi:10.1038/nbt1113
High-throughput generation of small antibacterial peptides with improved activityKai Hilpert1, Rudolf Volkmer-Engert2, Tess Walter1
& Robert E W Hancock11
Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of British Columbia, #2259 Lower Mall Research Station, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 1Z3, Canada. 2
Institut für Medizinische Immunologie, Universitätsklinikum Charité, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Schumannstr. 20-21, 10117
Berlin, Germany.
Correspondence should be addressed to Robert E W Hancock bob@cmdr.ubc.ca Cationic antimicrobial peptides are able to kill a broad variety of Gram-negative and Gram positive bacteria and thus are good candidates for a new generation of antibiotics to treat multidrug-resistant bacteria. Here we describe a high-throughput method to screen large numbers of peptides for improved antimicrobial activity. The method relies on peptide synthesis on a cellulose support and a Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain that constitutively expresses bacterial luciferase. A complete substitution library of 12-amino-acid peptides based on a linearized variant (RLARIVVIRVAR-NH2) of the bovine peptide bactenecin was screened and used to determine which substitutions at each position of the peptide chain improved activity. By combining the most favorable substitutions, we designed optimized 12-mer peptides showing broad spectrum activities with minimal inhibitory concentrations (MIC) as low as 0.5  g/ml against Escherichia coli. Similarly, we generated an 8-mer substituted peptide that showed broad spectrum activity, with an MIC of 2 g/ml, against E. coli and Staphylococcus aureus.
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