Susceptibility of Neisseria gonorrhoeae to antimicrobial peptides from amphibian skin, dermaseptin, and derivatives.

Abstract : We evaluated the antimicrobial effect of antimicrobial peptides from frog skin belonging to the dermaseptin family against reference and clinical Neisseria gonorrhoeae strains, including penicillin-resistant strains. Dermaseptin S4 exhibited anti-N. gonorrhoeae activity against all strains with MICs ranging between 10 and 100 microg/mL. We then used derivatives of DS4 and determined the anti-N. gonorrhoeae activity of each of analogs. All the derivatives showed antimicrobial activity. Among the different molecules tested, we found that dermaseptins K4S4 (1-16)a and K4S4 (1-28) were the more potent to inhibit N. gonorrhoeae growth with MIC of 10 microg/mL against all strains.