Biological activity of serine-proline dipeptide to Enterobacteriaceae bacteria

Some dipeptides function as bioactive substances to prevent the illness such as hypertension and dementia. However, almost no dipeptides are known to directly contribute to prevention of bacterial infection.

We examined the antibacterial activity of dipeptides to six species of Gram-negative bacteria and a Gram-positive bacterium by the colony-forming units measurement and found that serine-proline dipeptide acts as an antibacterial agent selective on Enterobacteriaceae bacteria. In the microscopic observation of purified peptidoglycan particles, serine-proline dipeptide selectively disrupted Gram-negative bacterium-type peptidoglycan particles. In the protein analysis, serine-proline dipeptide induced hypertrophy of the bacterial cell bodies of an Enterobacteriaceae bacterium Klebsiella pneumoniae and caused the leakage of proteins from the bacterial cells. On the contrary, proline-serine dipeptide had no influence on the survival of all bacterial species examined. Apart from this, serine-proline dipeptide turned out to elicit the antibacterial ability of an antibiotic polymyxin B to Enterobacteriaceae bacteria. Meanwhile, proline-serine dipeptide inhibited the antibacterial action of polymyxin B on Enterobacteriaceae bacteria. In the molecular dynamics calculation, serine-proline dipeptide molecules integrated around a polymyxin B molecule and retained the stretched conformation of polymyxin B molecule. Meanwhile, a proline-serine dipeptide molecule interacted with joint moiety between the ring and linear structures of polymyxin B molecule and retained the folded conformation of its molecule. In sum, active and inactive forms of polymyxin B on Enterobacteriaceae bacteria were suggested to take the stretched and folded conformations, respectively.

Serine-proline dipeptide may be beneficial to prevention of Enterobacteriaceae bacterial infection.