Headway Group Of Research

Volume 7 Issue 3

Anti-Helicobacter pylori Properties of the Ant-Venom Peptide Bicarinalin

Olamide Jogunola, Augustine Ikpehai, Kelvin Anoh, Bamidele Adebisi, Mohammad Hammoudeh, Haris Gacanin and Georgina Harris

1
Lboratorios de Investigación y Desarrollo, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia (UPCH), Lima 34, Peru
2EA7417-BTSB, Université Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées, INU Champollion, 81012 Albi, France
3Fonderephar, Université de Toulouse, Faculté des Sciences Pharmaceutiques, 31062 Toulouse, France
4UMR 152 PHARMADEV, Université de Toulouse, IRD, 31062 Toulouse, France
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
These authors contributed equally to this work.

Abstract

The venom peptide bicarinalin, previously isolated from the ant Tetramorium bicarinatum, is an antimicrobial agent with a broad spectrum of activity. In this study, we investigate the potential of bicarinalin as a novel agent against Helicobacter pylori, which causes several gastric diseases. First, the effects of synthetic bicarinalin have been tested against Helicobacter pylori: one ATCC strain, and forty-four isolated from stomach ulcer biopsies of Peruvian patients. Then the cytoxicity of bicarinalin on human gastric cells and murine peritoneal macrophages was measured using XTT and MTT assays, respectively. Finally, the preventive effect of bicarinalin was evaluated by scanning electron microscopy using an adherence assay of H. pylori on human gastric cells treated with bicarinalin. This peptide has a potent antibacterial activity at the same magnitude as four antibiotics currently used in therapies against H. pylori. Bicarinalin also inhibited adherence of H. pylori to gastric cells with an IC50 of 0.12 μg·mL−1 and had low toxicity for human cells. Scanning electron microscopy confirmed that bicarinalin can significantly decrease the density of H. pylori on gastric cells. We conclude that Bicarinalin is a promising compound for the development of a novel and effective anti-H. pylori agent for both curative and preventive use.
Keywords:bicarinalin; antimicrobial peptide; Helicobacter pylori; gastric cells; bacterial adhesion; SEM
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