Antibiotic activity of reversed peptides of α-helical antimicrobial peptide, P18

P18 (KWKLFKKIPKFLHLAKKF-NH₂), an α-helical antimicrobial peptide designed from cecropin A-magainin 2 hybrid, was known to have potent antimicrobial activity against bacteria as well as fungi without hemolytic activity. To find the peptides comparable or superior to the antimicrobiai activity of P18, the two reversed peptides (Rev-1 and Rev-2) of P18 were designed and synthesized. These peptides were found to have similar antimicrobial activity against bacterial and fungal cells without hemolytic activity as compared with P18. Furthermore, a reversed peptide, Rev-2 was shown to have a two-fold higher activity in killing some bacterial cells than P18. Therefore, these results suggested that Rev-2 peptide seems to be an excellent candidate for developing novel peptide antibiotics.