Identification, characterization and purification of the lantibiotic staphylococcin T, a natural gallidermin variant

Abstract

O DH AJ S KA . 1999. Staphylococcin T (StT), an antibacterial agent produced by a Staphylococcus cohnii T strain, was purified to homogeneity by ammonium sulphate precipitation, gel filtration, cation exchange and fast performance liquid chromatography (FPLC). The final yield was about 20%, and over a 1000-fold increase in the specific activity was obtained. Mass determination (2166 Da), amino acid sequencing (Ile-Ala-Xaa-Lys-Phe-Leu-Xaa-Xaa-Pro-Gly-Xaa-Ala-Lys-block) and DNA sequencing demonstrated that StT is identical to gallidermin, a lanthionine-containing antimicrobial peptide. StT has a broad spectrum of bactericidal activity against Gram-positive and some Gram-negative bacteria. StT appears to damage cell membrane, and as a result causes an efflux of ions and an immediate block in macromolecular synthesis. Moreover, electron microscopic observations reveal morphological changes, with a loss of ribosomes and condensation of the nucleoid DNA. These changes are followed by a dissolution of the cell contents resulting in a bacterial ghost composed of seemingly intact cell walls with remnants of the cytoplasmic membrane and internal structure. Since StT exhibits antimicrobial activity especially against the Staphylococcus species, this compound may be of use in the treatment of staphylococcal infections.

Intracellular Targeting Mechanisms by Antimicrobial Peptides

“…The finding supported the hypothesis that other lantibiotics possessing similar lanthionine A/B ring structures may exhibit similar mechanisms of action (139)(140)(141). This might help explain the potent non-pore-forming antibacterial activity of staphylococcin T, gallidermin, and epidermin (142,143).…”

Baltic cyanobacteria – a source of biologically active compounds

“…Strains 1 and 12 were isolated at the Medical University Hospital in Gdańsk, and identified with the use of VITEK Legacy (BioMerieux, Lyon, France). Strain 6, isolated from the human throat (Furmanek et al, 1999) and strain 8 were kindly provided by Prof. T. Kaczorowski, Dept. Molecular Biology, University of Gdańsk.…”

An Alternative Bactericidal Mechanism of Action for Lantibiotic Peptides That Target Lipid II

“…(16), which may now be explained by an uncoupling between cell wall synthesis and membrane synthesis during cell division. Recently, it has been shown that lantibiotics similar to mutacin 1140 (such as gallidermin and epidermin) are able to form pores only in model membranes composed of short-chain phospholipids that form thin membranes (17).…”