A novel defensin-like antimicrobial peptide from the skin secretions of the tree frog, Theloderma kwangsiensis

Wang, Shen; Chen, Yan; Yao, Huimin; Du, Canwei; Luan, Ning; Yan, Xiuwen

doi:10.1016/j.gene.2015.09.086

Cited by 17 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…We used the genome and transcriptome assemblies of the southern stuttering frog to characterise two families of AMPs: cathelicidins and β-defensins. These families were selected due to their conservation across vertebrate species (Kosciuczuk et al 2012; Tu et al 2015), highly conserved structures and motifs (Chen et al 2021; Shen et al 2016; Yu et al 2022) and demonstrated antimicrobial potency (Shen et al 2016; Wei et al 2015). We identified 12 cathelicidin (MA-CATH1-12) and two β-defensin (MA-BD1 and MA-BD2) genes in the genome using homology-based search strategies.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multi-omics resources for the Australian southern stuttering frog (Mixophyes australis) reveal assorted antimicrobial peptides

Tang,

Peel,

Belov

et al. 2023

Preprint

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The number of genome-level resources for non-model species continues to rapidly expand. However, frog species remain underrepresented, with up to 90% of frog genera having no genomic or transcriptomic data. Here, we assemble the first genomic and transcriptomic resources for the recently described southern stuttering frog (Mixophyes australis). The southern stuttering frog is ground-dwelling, inhabiting naturally vegetated riverbanks in south-eastern Australia. Using PacBio HiFi long-read sequencing and Hi-C scaffolding, we generated a high-quality genome assembly, with a scaffold N50 of 369.3 Mb and 95.1% of the genome contained in twelve scaffolds. Using this assembly, we identified the mitochondrial genome, and assembled six tissue-specific transcriptomes. We also bioinformatically characterised novel sequences of two families of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) in the southern stuttering frog, the cathelicidins and β-defensins. While traditional peptidomic approaches to peptide discovery have typically identified one or two AMPs in a frog species from skin secretions, our bioinformatic approach discovered 12 cathelicidins and two beta-defensins that were expressed in a range of tissues. We investigated the novelty of the peptides and found diverse predicted activities. Our bioinformatic approach highlights the benefits of multi-omics resources in peptide discovery and contributes valuable genomic resources in an under-represented taxon.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multi-omics resources for the Australian southern stuttering frog (Mixophyes australis) reveal assorted antimicrobial peptides

Tang,

Peel,

Belov

et al. 2023

Preprint

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“…Given that these peptides have been identified in frogs from the same taxonomic family [84], this would suggest that defensin-TK and PopuDef may have originated from a common gene. Moreover, these latter two AAMPs showed homology of around 50% with CFBD-1, which is a defensin from the fire-bellied newt, Cynops fudingensis, a new species recently identified in North Eastern Fujian Province, China [40][41]. This peptide was mildly anionic (net charge -0.4) and showed moderate activity against Grampositive bacteria, such as S. aureus, and weaker activity against other bacteria and fungi [42].…”

Section: Amphibian Aamps From Chinamentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Since the discovery of PopuDef, a second amphibian anionic defensin has been identified in skin secretions of the tree frog, Theloderma kwangsiensis (Theloderma kwangsiense), which is mostly found in Eastern Guangxi Province, China. Designated defensin-TK (net charge -1), the peptide showed broad range antimicrobial activity with efficacy against C. albicans, Gram-positive bacteria, such as S. aureus, and Gram-negative bacteria, including B. dysenteriae [41]. Our own analyses using the SIM -Alignment Tool for protein sequences (http://web.expasy.org/sim/) revealed that there is circa 90% sequence homology between defensin-TK and PopuDef.…”

Section: Amphibian Aamps From Chinamentioning

confidence: 99%

An Atlas of Anionic Antimicrobial Peptides from Amphibians

Dennison

Harris

Mura

et al. 2018

CPPS

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Anionic antimicrobial peptides (AAMPs) with net charges ranging from -1 to -8 have been identified in frogs, toads, newts and salamanders across Africa, South America and China. Most of these peptides show antibacterial activity and a number of them are multifunctional, variously showing antifungal activity, anticancer action, neuropeptide function and the ability to potentiate conventional antibiotics. Antimicrobial mechanisms proposed for these AAMPs, include toroidal pore formation and the Shai-Huang-Matsazuki model of membrane interaction along with pH dependent amyloidogenesis and membranolysis via tilted peptide formation. The potential for therapeutic and biotechnical application of these AAMPs has been demonstrated, including the development of amyloid-based nanomaterials and antiviral agents. It is concluded that amphibian AAMPs represent an untapped potential source of biologically active agents and merit far greater research interest.

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“…Because most AMPs under therapeutic investigation are derived from naturally occurring AMPs in various organisms [ 2 ], effective methods to discover natural AMPs would expand the number of potential candidates. Current wet lab screening protocols consist of extraction, isolation, and purification of AMPs through laborious methods such as the collection of skin secretions followed by liquid chromatography and sequence identification using mass spectrometry [ 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 ]. However, these protocols are costly, time-consuming, and expertise intensive.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mining Amphibian and Insect Transcriptomes for Antimicrobial Peptide Sequences with rAMPage

et al. 2022

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Antibiotic resistance is a global health crisis increasing in prevalence every day. To combat this crisis, alternative antimicrobial therapeutics are urgently needed. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), a family of short defense proteins, are produced naturally by all organisms and hold great potential as effective alternatives to small molecule antibiotics. Here, we present rAMPage, a scalable bioinformatics discovery platform for identifying AMP sequences from RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) datasets. In our study, we demonstrate the utility and scalability of rAMPage, running it on 84 publicly available RNA-seq datasets from 75 amphibian and insect species—species known to have rich AMP repertoires. Across these datasets, we identified 1137 putative AMPs, 1024 of which were deemed novel by a homology search in cataloged AMPs in public databases. We selected 21 peptide sequences from this set for antimicrobial susceptibility testing against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus and observed that seven of them have high antimicrobial activity. Our study illustrates how in silico methods such as rAMPage can enable the fast and efficient discovery of novel antimicrobial peptides as an effective first step in the strenuous process of antimicrobial drug development.

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A novel defensin-like antimicrobial peptide from the skin secretions of the tree frog, Theloderma kwangsiensis

Cited by 17 publications

References 35 publications

Multi-omics resources for the Australian southern stuttering frog (Mixophyes australis) reveal assorted antimicrobial peptides

Multi-omics resources for the Australian southern stuttering frog (Mixophyes australis) reveal assorted antimicrobial peptides

An Atlas of Anionic Antimicrobial Peptides from Amphibians

Mining Amphibian and Insect Transcriptomes for Antimicrobial Peptide Sequences with rAMPage

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