Antimicrobial activity of arginine- and tryptophan-rich hexapeptides: the effects of aromatic clusters, D-amino acid substitution and cyclization

Many antimicrobial peptides bear arginine (R)- and tryptophan (W)-rich sequence motifs. Based on the sequence Ac-RRWWRF-NH2, sets of linear and cyclic peptides were generated by changes in the amino acid sequence, L-D-amino acid exchange and naphthylalanine substituted for tryptophan. Linear RW-peptides displayed moderate activity towards Gram-positive Bacillus subtilis (15 < MIC < 31 muM) and were inactive against Gram-negative Escherichia coli at peptide concentrations <100 muM. Cyclization induced high antimicrobial activity. The effect of cyclization was most pronounced for peptides with three adjacent aromatic residues. Incorporation of D-amino acid residues had minor influence on the biological activity. The haemolytic activity of all RW-peptides at 100 muM concentration was low (<7% lysis for linear R/W-rich peptides and <28% for the cyclic analogues). Introduction of naphthylalanine enhanced the biological activities of both the linear and cyclic peptides. All peptides induced permeabilization of large unilamellar vesicles (LUVs) composed of lipids of the membrane of B. subtilis and erythrocytes, but surprisingly had no effect on LUVs composed of lipids of the E. coli inner membrane. The profiles of peptide activity against B. subtilis and red blood cells correlated with the permeabilizing effects on the corresponding model membranes and were related to hydrophobicity parameters as derived from reversed phase high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The results underlined the importance of amphipathicity as a driving force for cell lytic activity and suggest that conformational constraints and an appropriate position of aromatic residues allowing the formation of hydrophobic clusters are highly favourable for antimicrobial activity and selectivity.