immunology & Biochemistry
Mahboube Zarabi; Akram Roshan; Ezat Asgarani; Mona Pakdel; Mahsa Rouini
Volume 24, Issue 2 , May and June 2017, , Pages 89-96
Abstract
Background and aim:Cyclotides are plant polypeptides characterized by their unique cyclic cysteine knot structural motif. They are present in many plants from the Violaceae, Rubiaceae and Cucurbitaceae families. But they also have variety of biological activities, including anti-HIV, antimicrobial and ...
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Background and aim:Cyclotides are plant polypeptides characterized by their unique cyclic cysteine knot structural motif. They are present in many plants from the Violaceae, Rubiaceae and Cucurbitaceae families. But they also have variety of biological activities, including anti-HIV, antimicrobial and cytotoxic activities. Because of their exceptional stability, they have attracted interest as a potential starting point material for protein engineering and drug design.
Materials and Methods: The aim of this study is identification of genes encoding cyclotides from V. odorata, V. occulta, and V. ignobilis. We also study antimicrobial effect of cyclotides extracted from V. ignobilis. To reach this aim extraction of cyclotide was done by fractionation and solid phase extraction methods.
Results: Findings indicate the presence of the cyclotide gene in all three plant species which studied. Examination of antimicrobial effect of partial purified cyclotide, defined S. aureus is the most susceptible bacterium among human pathogenic and X. oryzea is the most susceptible bacterium among all of studied bacteria.
Conclusion: In general, it seems that it can be used cyclotide peptide in most of the viola species because of their anti-peptide property in the pharmaceutical industry. Study of cyclotide sequences shows that despite of existence of conserved amino acids in the most of cyclotides, the differences in performance are due to sequence variation.