Antisense oligonucleotide (AON)-mediated exon skipping is a promising therapeutic approach for Duchenne muscular dystrophy that is currently being tested in various clinical trials. This approach is based on restoring the open reading frame of dystrophin transcripts resulting in shorter but partially functional dystrophin proteins as found in patients with Becker muscular dystrophy. After systemic administration, a large proportion of AONs ends up in the liver and kidneys. Therefore, enhancing AON uptake by skeletal and cardiac muscle would improve the AONs' therapeutic effect. For phosphorodiamidate morpholino oligomer, AONs use nonspecific positively charged cell penetrating peptides to enhance efficacy. However, this is challenging for negatively charged 2'-O-methyl phosphorothioate oligomer. Therefore, we screened a 7-mer phage display peptide library to identify muscle and heart homing peptides in vivo in the mdx mouse model and found a promising candidate peptide capable of binding muscle cells in vitro and in vivo. Upon systemic administration in dystrophic mdx mice, conjugation of a 2'-O-methyl phosphorothioate AON to this peptide indeed improved uptake in skeletal and cardiac muscle, and resulted in higher exon skipping levels with a significant difference in heart and diaphragm. Based on these results, peptide conjugation represents an interesting strategy to enhance the therapeutic effect of exon skipping with 2'-O-methyl phosphorothioate AONs for Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

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Drosocin is a 19-mer, cationic antimicrobial peptide from Drosophila melanogaster. The aim of the study was to examine the antibacterial spectrum of unglycosylated drosocin analogues. Furthermore, the amino acid sequence of DnaK, drosocin's intracellular target, from susceptible species was aligned and studied for sequence homology. From this a panel of 31 bacterial strains, including Salmonella strains with truncated lipopolysaccharide structures, was tested for susceptibility towards three drosocin analogues. Available bacterial DnaK amino acid sequences were retrieved from the ExPASy proteomics server of the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics studied for sequence homology. Seventeen of the 31 strains tested were susceptible for the drosocin analogues. Minimal inhibitory concentration values against mainly Gram-negative bacteria ranged from 3.1 to 100 lM. With the exception of Micrococcus luteus and Xanthomonas campestris all drosocin analogue-susceptible strains were Enterobacteriaceae showing a high DnaK amino acid sequence homology.

As part of a program towards the development of novel antibiotics, a convenient method for solid-phase synthesis of the cyclic cationic peptide polymyxin B1 and analogues thereof is described. The methodology, based on cleavage-by-cyclization using Kenner's safety-catch linker, yields crude products with purities ranging from 37-67%. Antibacterial assays revealed that analogues 23-26, in which the (S)-6-methyloctanoic acid moiety is replaced with shorter acyl chains, exhibit distinct antimicrobial activity. The results suggest that the length of the acyl chain is rather critical for antimicrobial activity. On the other hand, substitution of the hydrophobic ring-segment D-Phe-6/Leu-7 in polymyxin B1 with dipeptide mimics (i.e. analogues 27-33) resulted in almost complete loss of antimicrobial activity.