Biochemical property and membrane-peptide interactions of de novo antimicrobial peptides designed by helix-forming units

Typical peptides composed of Phe, Ile, and Arg residues have not been reported, and the effect of the helix-forming unit (HFU) composed of the tripeptide core on biological activity remains unclear. In this study, multimers of the 3-residue HFU were designed to investigate the structure–function relationships. The in vitro biological activities of the peptides were determined. We used synthetic lipid vesicles and intact bacteria to assess the interactions of the peptides with cell membranes. The well-studied peptide melittin was chosen as a control peptide. The results showed that the antimicrobial and hemolytic activities of the peptides increased with the number of HFUs. HFU3 had optimal cell selectivity as determined by the therapeutic index. HFU3 and HFU4 exhibited strong resistance to salts, pH, and heat. CD spectra revealed that the peptides except HFU2 displayed α-helix-rich secondary structures in the presence of SDS or trifluoroethanol (TFE). The peptides interacted weakly with zwitterionic phospholipids (mimicking mammalian membranes) but strongly with negatively charged phospholipids (mimicking bacterial membranes), which corresponds well with the data for the biological activities. There was a correlation between the cell selectivity of the peptides and their high binding affinity with negatively charged phospholipids. Cell membrane permeability experiments suggest that the peptides targeted the cell membrane, and HFU3 showed higher permeabilization of the inner membrane but lower permeabilization of the outer membrane than melittin. These findings provide the new insights to design antimicrobial peptides with antimicrobial potency by trimers.