Amphipathicity Determines Different Cytotoxic Mechanisms of Lysine- or Arginine-Rich Cationic Hydrophobic Peptides in Cancer Cells

Cationic amphipathic peptides (CAPs) are known to be able to cause membrane destabilization and induce cell death, yet how the hydrophobicity, amphipathicity, and lysine (K)/arginine (R) composition synergistically affect the peptide activity remains incompletely understood. Here, we designed a panel of peptides based on the well-known anticancer peptide KLA. Increasing hydrophobicity enhanced the cytotoxicities of both the K- and R-rich peptides. Peptides with an intact amphipathic helical interface can cause instant cell death through a membrane lysis mechanism. Interestingly, rearranging the residue positions to minimize amphipathicity caused a great decrease of cytotoxicity to the K-rich peptides but not to the R-rich peptides. The amphipathicity-minimized R-rich peptide 6 (RL2) (RLLRLLRLRRLLRL-NH2) penetrated the cell membrane and induced caspase-3-dependent apoptotic cell death. We found that the modulation of hydrophobicity, amphipathicity, and K/R residues leads to distinct mechanisms of action of cationic hydrophobic peptides. Amphipathicity-reduced, arginine-rich cationic hydrophobic peptides (CHPs) may represent a new class of peptide therapeutics.