Design and Characterisation of Antimicrobial peptides

Robert Janes (primary)
School of Biological & Chemical Sciences
Queen Mary, University of London
Bonnie Wallace (secondary)
Biological Sciences
Birkbeck

Abstract

With a growing resistance developing to current antimicrobial compounds there is a need to expand the armoury of those used to include novel naturally occurring compounds, especially if these can act as templates for developing more potent synthesised pharmaceuticals.  One area for investigation is peptides that naturally punch holes in microbial membranes.  This project will characterise these natural materials and their interactions with these membranes with a view to developing peptides from them for applications in the health and agricultural areas.  Computational tools developed and utilised for these data analyses will also see use in the wider scientific community.


References

  1. Mavridis, L. and Janes, R.W. (2017) PDB2CD: a web-based application for the generation of circular dichroism spectra from protein atomic coordinates. Bioinformatics 33:56-63.
  2. Ulmschneider, M.B., Ulmschneider, J.P. Schiller, N., Wallace, B.A., von Heijne, G., and White, S.H. (2014) Spontaneous transmembrane helix insertion thermodynamically mimics translocon-guided insertion. Nature Comms. 5:4863.
  3. Miles, A.J., and Wallace, B.A. (2016) Circular Dichroism Spectroscopy of Membrane Proteins. Chem. Soc. Reviews 45: 4859-4872.
  4. Fernandez, D. I., Sani, M.–A., Miles, A. J, Wallace, B A, and Separovic, F. (2013) Membrane defects enhance the interaction of antimicrobial peptides, aurein 1.2 versus caerin 1.1. Biochim. Biophys. Acta (Biomembranes) 1828:1863–1872.
  5. Klose, D.P. Wallace, B.A. and Janes, R.W. (2010) 2Struc: the secondary structure server. Bioinformatics 26:2624-2625.

BBSRC Area
Molecules, cells and industrial biotechnology
Area of Biology
Chemical BiologyStructural Biology
Techniques & Approaches
BiochemistryBioinformaticsBiophysicsChemistryMicroscopy / ElectrophysiologySimulation / Modelling