格拉利素抗菌肽家系的发现及部分功能验证

目的:继发现人源性新抗菌肽基因并进行功能验证后,进一步发现高度同源蛋白质家系并进行功能验证.方法:利用生物信息学分析手段对该蛋白家系各成员进行系统分析,人工合成具有代表性的不同肽段,采用比浊法和菌落计数法测定人工合成肽段的抗菌活性.结果及结论:发现了富含甘氨酸并且序列高度同源的抗菌肽家系,命名为格拉利素(Glyrichin),目前含有来自不同生物的29个成员,所有成员均无相关功能研究报道;根据多序列比对结果所合成的、代表家系中9个成员的4条多肽均有不同程度的抗菌作用.上述生物信息学分析和实验研究结果强烈提示了新抗菌肽家系的存在,其中跨越哺乳动物的抗菌肽家系的存在已得到充分证实.

Discovery of a novel antimicrobial peptide family(Glyrichin) and assay of its partial function by experiments

Objective:To carry out based on the discovery of a novel human glycine-rich protein(hGlyrichin) with antibacterial activity in order to find a protein family highly homologous to and functionally similar to hGlyrichin.Methods: Bioinformatic analysis was performed using public softwares.Four representative peptides derived from different species were synthesized,and their activities against E.coli were evaluated by means of counting the colony numbers and examining the growth rate of target bacteria after incubation with each peptide.Results and Conclusions:A novel glycine-rich antimicrobial peptide family(Glyrichin)containing 29 functionally-unknown members that are structurally homologous to hGlyrichin was discovered.Four peptides representing 9 members of the family were synthesized according to the result of multiple sequences alignment,and were found to have more or less antibacterial activities.The comprehensive results of bioinformatic analysis and the experimental results strongly suggested that a novel antimicrobial peptide family crossing multi-species,at least the sub-family crossing mammalian,exists naturally.The results imply that the novel family plays very important role in the defense against bacterial infection.