Cheliferin an antimicrobial peptide

Cheliferin an antimicrobial peptide 

Pedro Ismael Da Silva Júnior ^{1,2 & 3}

¹Instituto Butantan, FARMACOLOGIA (São Paulo, Brasil), ² Universidade de São Paulo, PG Interunidades em Biotecnologia - USP (São Paulo, Brasil) ³ PG Biologia Molecular - UNIFESP (São Paulo, Brasil)

INTRODUCTION: Arachnids been on Earth for over 350 million years ago and the fossil record show that have changed very little in all that time. This indicates that have an efficient immune system, since living in environments rich in microorganisms and parasites. Infectious diseases are among the leading causes of death of the human population, and the microorganisms are becoming increasingly resistant to existing antibiotics, so the pseudo scorpions represent a new alternative to research in this field, as they are little studied. The study of new classes of antibiotics is always an alternative that is being developed to help in the fight against infections, given that drug resistance developed by the microorganisms is a reality. OBJECTIVES: The main objective of the project is to isolate substances pseudo scorpion present in the extract, which have antimicrobial activity and antiviral. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The methodology was carried out through the collection of pseudo scorpions, extraction with acetic acid, pre-purification by Sep-Pak C18 and RP-HPLC, antimicrobial tests ahead to Gram-positive, Gram-negative and Yeast microorganisms subsequently conducting the characterization of the bioactive fraction isolated by mass spectrometry. It was also cytotoxic and antiviral assay performed. DISCUSSION AND RESULTS: Ten peptides with antimicrobial activity against Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria were found in the acid extract of pseudoscorpions. The results demonstrate that there is a fraction with a purity of 95% that presented antimicrobial activity. The fraction of interest was named Cheliferin: Cheliferin is a peptide with a molecular weight of 748.47 Da that showed no similarity with any previously reported antimicrobial peptide. The molecule presented activity against Micrococcus luteus A270 (G+), Escherichia coli SBS363(G-) and partial against Candida auris (Yeast). It did not show hemolytic activity and has no cytotoxicity against other mammalian cells. “De novo sequencing” of Cheliferin was performed, and the aa sequence was determined: GAVLDIR. These results may indicate that Cheliferin can be used as a new drug in the future. Supported by: CNPq – FAPESP