A novel bioactive peptide from the defensive skin secretion of Phyllomedusa sauvagii

The research and exploitation of the peptides in amphibian skin secretions with antimicrobial or haemolytic activities has become increasingly popular. Many studies show that the antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) collected from amphibians have pharmacological and clinical potential.<br><br>This thesis focuses on a novel peptide discovered from the skin secretion of Phyllomedusa sauvagii.

Firstly, “shotgun” cloning was used to obtain the nucleotide and translated open-reading frame (ORF) amino acid sequence of this precursor-encoding cDNA. BLAST analysis indicated that the amino acid sequence of the novel peptide QUB-2909 (ALWKNMLKGIGKLAGQAALGAVKTLVGAE) belonged to the dermaseptin family. QUB-2909 was then synthesised by use of solid phase peptide synthesis.