SCREENING AND IN SILICO VALIDATION OF ANTIMICROBIAL PEPTIDES DERIVED FROM DNASE1 AND DNASE 1- LIKE 3

Abstract

Abstract

Introduction: Drug resistance is emerging as a potential threat to mankind. Numerous compounds from diverse sources have been tested against potential drug resistant pathogens. Antimicrobial peptides are small molecules used in peptide-therapy. The present study is one such attempt to identify peptides from deoxyribonucleases and demonstrate its antimicrobial activities employing in silico tools.

Aim: To demonstrate putative antimicrobial activity of DNASE1 and DNASE1L3 derived antimicrobial peptides.

Materials and methods: The observational study employs the use of computational tools which was used to identify peptide molecules and demonstrate their antimicrobial properties such as anti-biofilm, anti-fungal etc., Furthermore, the toxicity and cell penetrating properties of peptides were evaluated.

Results and discussion: Among three peptides of DNase1-like 3 two were found to exhibit active anti-biofilm and anti-fungal property. Whilst, DNAase 2 was found to show only antifungal property. None of the proteins identified were found to be cell penetrating or toxic in nature.

Conclusion: Taken together, the antimicrobial peptides derived from DNase1-like 3 and DNAase 2 were found to exhibit promising antimicrobial effects as predicted by the in silico tools. Further validation of the peptides using in vitro and in vivo models would aid us in understanding the mechanism of action of these small molecules in a complex biological environment.