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Updated: Feb 3, 2026

Improved Enzyme Protection Assay to Study Staphylococcus aureus Internalization and Intracellular Efficacy of Antimicrobial Compounds
Published on: September 8, 2021
Novel vancomycin-peptide conjugate as potent antibacterial agent against vancomycin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus
Pavlina Jelinkova1, Zbynek Splichal1,2, Ana Maria Jimenez Jimenez1,2
1Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Mendel University in Brno, Zemedelska, Brno, Czech Republic, vojtech.adam@mendelu.cz.
Background:
Increase in vancomycin (Van)-resistant bacterial strains including vancomycin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (VRSA) and lack of new effective antibiotics have become a formidable health problem.
Materials And Methods:
We designed a new conjugate composed of Van and a peptide Hecate (Hec; Van/Hec), and its potential antimicrobial activity was evaluated.
Results:
Results from disk diffusion test, time-kill assay, determination of minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC), microscopy, and comet assay showed strong antimicrobial effects of Van/Hec against wild-type, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and VRSA. Microscopy revealed that the exposure to Van/Hec results in disruption of bacterial cell integrity in all tested strains, which was not observed in case of Van or Hec alone.
Conclusion:
Overall, we showed that the preparation of conjugates from antibiotics and biologically active peptides could help us to overcome the limitation of the use of antibiotic in the treatment of infections caused by multidrug-resistant bacteria.
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Peptide Bonds
Conjugated Proteins
Nucleoproteins are protein complexes that contain nucleic acids, categorized as deoxyribonucleoproteins (DNPs) or ribonucleoproteins (RNPs) respectively. The nucleosome is a typical example of a DNP where nuclear DNA is associated with histone proteins. The major antigen for the Covid-19 virus SARS-CoV is an RNP that is critical...
Conjugated Proteins
Conjugation
Mechanism of Conjugation
Resistivity

