A bioactive peptide from the skin of the Chinese Torrent Frog, Amolops wuyiensis

Abstract

Peptides derived from frog skin secretion have great potential as drug leads as they exhibit many bioactive functions. In this study, the precursor peptide of Lividin-AW was identified from the skin secretion of the Chinese torrent frog (Amolops wuyiensis) by using ‘shotgun’ cloning and its encoded mature peptide, sequenced as AVPLIYNRPGVYVTKRPK-NH2, was synthesised by Fmoc-solid phase peptide synthesis. The structure of the synthetic peptide was confirmed by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionisation time-of-flight (MALDI-TOF) mass spectrometry and purified by reversed-phase high performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC). To determine the bioactive function of Lividin-AW, a series of bioactivity assays, including antimicrobial assays, cell viability assays, a trypsin inhibition assay and a haemolysis assay, were conducted and the results showed that Lividin-AW exhibited weak antimicrobial activity against Candida albicans (MIC=128µM), Staphylococcus aureus (MIC=512 µM) and Escherichia coli (MIC=512 µM), with negligible haemolytic activity, but neither trypsin inhibition activity nor anticancer activity were detected.

Date of Award	25 Aug 2017
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Queen's University Belfast
Supervisor	Christopher Shaw (Supervisor), Tianbao Chen (Supervisor), Mei Zhou (Supervisor), Lei Wang (Supervisor), Xinping Xi (Supervisor) & Chengbang Ma (Supervisor)