XLIII Annual Meeting of SBBq
th
th
Foz do Iguaçu, PR, Brazil, May 17 to 20 , 2014
Biomembranes as Drug Targets for Antimicrobial Peptides:
From Vesicles to Bacteria
Castanho, M.A.R.B.1
1
Instituto de Medicina Molecular, School of Medicine, University of Lisbon,
1649-028 Lisbon, Portugal; [email protected]
There are many biological processes that depend on the interaction between
peptides/proteins and membrane lipids, such as viral fusion, translocation across
epithelia or innate immune defense. Some of these may be inspiring to develop
innovative therapeutic tools. The goal of our group is to unravel the physical
principles that govern lipid-peptide interactions, with implications in viral fusion (HIV
and Dengue virus are of particular interest), analgesia, antimicrobials, and drug
delivery agents.
The action of Antimicrobial Peptides (AMP) in biophysical models, such as lipid
vesicles, can be quantitatively correlated to the biological efficacy of these drugs
against bacteria. A judicious choice of spectroscopic techniques applied to lipid
vesicles and bacterial suspensions was used to explore the similarities and
differences between molecular-level events in both. Our work bridges Biophysics and
Microbiology.
References:
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Shifting gear in antimicrobial and anticancer peptides biophysical studies: from vesicles to
cells; JM Freire, D Gaspar, AS Veiga, MARB Castanho (2015) Journal of Peptide Science, in press.
•
Monitoring antibacterial permeabilization in real time using time-resolved flow cytometry; JM
Freire, D Gaspar, BG de la Torre, AS Veiga, D Andreu, M. Castanho (2015) Biochimica et Biophysica
Acta (BBA)-Biomembranes 1848 (2), 554-560
•
The mechanism of action of antimicrobial peptides: lipid vesicles vs. bacteria; MN Melo, MARB
Castanho (2012) Frontiers in immunology, 3: 236.
•
Prediction of antibacterial activity from physicochemical properties of antimicrobial peptides;
MN Melo, R Ferre, L Feliu, E Bardají, M Planas, MARB Castanho (2011) PLoS One 6 (12), e28549
•
Antimicrobial peptides: linking partition, activity and high membrane-bound concentrations; MN
Melo, R Ferre, MARB Castanho (2009) Nature Reviews Microbiology 7 (3), 245-250
Acknowledgements/Funding:
Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT), Portugal; Marie Curie Actions IAPP, RISE and IOF,
REA, European Commission, FP7-H2020; Ciência Sem Fronteira (Science Without Borders), CAPES
and CNPq, Brazil.