New therapeutic agents for Candida albicans vaginitis are urgently awaiting to be developed because of the increasing antibiotic resistance of C. albicans. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are one of the most promising choices for next-generation antibiotics. In this study, novel peptides were designed based on snake venom antimicrobial peptide cathelicidin-BF to promote anti-C. albicans activity and decrease side-effects. The designing strategies include substitutions of charged or hydrophobic amino acid residues for noncharged polar residues to promote antimicrobial activity and insertion of a hydrophobic residue in the hydrophilic side of the helix structure to reduce hemolysis. A designed tryptophan and lysine/arginine-rich cationic peptide 4 (ZY13) (VKRWKKWRWKWKKWV-NH2) exhibited excellent antimicrobial activity against either common strain or clinical isolates of antibiotic-resistant C. albicans with little hemolysis. Peptide 4 showed significant therapeutic effects on vaginitis in mice induced by the infection of clinical antibiotic-resistant C. albicans. The approaches herein might be useful for designing of AMPs.

A novel marine Gram-stain-negative, non-spore-forming, motile, aerobic, coccoid or ovoid bacterium, designated as strain DSL-16 T , was isolated from a tidal flat sediment on the East China Sea and characterized phylogenetically and phenotypically. Optimal growth of the strain occurred at 35 C (range 4-40 C), at pH 6 (range 5-11) and with 4 % (w/v) NaCl (range 1-14 %). The nearest phylogenetic neighbour was Paracoccus seriniphilus DSM 14827 T (98.2 % 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity). The digital DNA-DNA hybridization value between strain DSL-16 T and P. seriniphilus DSM 14827 T was 19.5±2.2 %. The average nucleotide identity value between strain DSL-16 T and P. seriniphilus DSM 14827 T was 83.6 %. The sole respiratory ubiquinone was Q-10. The major polar lipids were phosphatidylmonomethylethanolamine (PME), phosphatidylglycerol (PG), phosphatidylcholine (PC), phosphatidylethanolamine (PE), diphosphatidyglycerol (DPG) and glycolipid (GL). The predominant cellular fatty acids of strain DSL-16 T were C 18 : 1 !7c, C 18 : 0 and 11-methyl C 18 : 1 !7c. The G+C content of the genomic DNA was 64.5 mol%. The combined genotypic and phenotypic data indicated that strain DSL-16 T represents a novel species of the genus Paracoccus, for which the name Paracoccus sediminilitoris sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is DSL-16 T (=KCTC 62644 T =MCCC 1K03534 T).

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