Purification, characterization and application of a novel antimicrobial peptide from Andrias davidianus blood

The Andrias davidianus has been known as a traditional Chinese medicine for a long time. Its blood is considered as a waste or by-product of the meat production industry. Although there are reports on isolation of the antimicrobial peptides from different resources, there are no reports of their isolation from A. davidianus blood. In this work, an antimicrobial peptide, andricin B, was isolated from the blood of A. davidianus by an innovative method in which the magnetic liposome adsorption was combined with reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography. The structure, antimicrobial activity and safety of andricin B were further investigated. Amino acid sequence was determined by N-terminal sequencing and found to be Gly-Leu-Thr-Arg-Leu-Phe-Ser-Val-Ile-Lys. Circular dichroism (CD) spectra and prediction of three-dimensional structure by bioinformatics software suggested the presence of a well-defined random coil conformation. Andricin B was found to be active against all bacteria tested in this study as well as some fungi. The minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) were in the range 8-64 μg ml^-1 . Moreover, the haemolytic testing also suggested that andricin B could be considered safe at the MICs. Finally, andricin B was shown to inhibit the growth of Staphylococcus aureus in the cooked meat of A. davidianus. This study shows that andricin B is a promising novel antimicrobial peptide that may provide further insights towards the development of new drugs.

This is the pioneer study on screening and isolation of antimicrobial peptide from the blood of Andrias davidianus. Here, we have developed a novel method by combining magnetic liposomes adsorption with reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography to purify and screen the antimicrobial peptides. From this screen, we identified a novel antimicrobial peptide which we name as andricin B. Andricin B is unique as it checks the growth of both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria as well as few fungal species.