A Rapid In Vivo Toxicity Assessment Method for Antimicrobial Peptides

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) represent a promising antibiotic alternative to overcome drug-resistant bacteria by inserting into the membrane of bacteria, resulting in cell lysis. However, therapeutic applications of AMPs have been hindered by their ability to lyse eukaryotic cells. GF-17 is a truncated peptide of LL-37, which has perfect amphipathicity and a higher hydrophobicity, resulting in higher haemolytic activity. However, there is no significant difference in the cytotoxicity against human lung epithelial cells between the GF-17 and LL-37 groups, indicating that there are significant differences in the sensitivity of different human cells to GF-17. In this study, LL-37 and GF-17 were administered to mouse lungs via intranasal inoculation. Blood routine examination results showed that LL-37 did not affect the red blood cells, platelet, white blood cells and neutrophil counts, but GF-17 decreased the white blood cells and neutrophil counts with the increasing concentration of peptides. GF-17-treated mice suffer a body weight loss of about 2.3 g on average in 24 h, indicating that GF-17 is highly toxic to mice. The total cell counts in the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid from GF-17-treated mice were 4.66-fold that in the untreated group, suggesting that GF-17 treatment leads to inflammation in the lungs of mice. Similarly, the histological results showed the infiltration of neutrophils in the lungs of GF-17-treated mice. The results suggest that the administration of GF-17 in the lungs of mice does not affect the red blood cells and platelet counts in the blood but promotes neutrophil infiltration in the lungs, leading to an inflammatory response. Therefore, we established a mouse acute lung injury model to preliminarily evaluate the in vivo toxicity of AMPs. For AMPs with a clinical application value, systematic research is still needed to evaluate their acute and long-term toxicity.