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Peptide Design Enables Reengineering of an Inactive Wasp Venom Peptide into Synthetic Antiplasmodial Agents
Author(s) -
Torres Marcelo D. T.,
Silva Adriana F.,
Pedron Cibele N.,
Capurro Margareth L.,
de la FuenteNunez Cesar,
Junior Vani X. Oliveira
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
chemistryselect
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.437
H-Index - 34
ISSN - 2365-6549
DOI - 10.1002/slct.201800529
Subject(s) - peptide , malaria , rational design , venom , protozoa , biology , function (biology) , computational biology , biochemistry , microbiology and biotechnology , immunology , genetics
Malaria, caused by Plasmodium protozoa, is responsible for ∼0.5 million deaths annually. Decoralin is a wasp‐derived peptide with activity against a number of microorganisms but no antiplasmodial function. In its unmodified form, it cannot be used as an anti‐infective because of its hemolytic activity. We have generated decoralin analogs with potent antiplasmodial function. Our results provide insight into antiplasmodial sequence requirements and identify single mutations that confer novel biological and therapeutic properties to this peptide, demonstrating the utility of rational peptide design.