Detection of Antimicrobial (Poly)Peptides with Acid Urea Polyacrylamide Gel Electrophoresis Followed by Western Immunoblot

Antimicrobial (poly)peptides (AMPs) are ancient key effector molecules of innate host defense and have been identified in mammals, insects, plants, and even fungi (Nakatsuji and Gallo, J Invest Dermatol, 132: 887–895, 2012). They exhibit a cationic net charge at physiological pH and are rich in hydrophobic amino acids (Dufourc et al., Curr Protein Pept Sci, 13: 620–631, 2012). Their mode of action has been best investigated in bacteria. When assuming secondary structure the cationic and hydrophobic amino acids are sequestered creating a bipartitioned molecule in which the cationic amino acids mediate initial electrostatic interaction with the negatively charged bacterial surface and the hydrophobic amino acids mediate embedding into the bacterial membranes followed by a multitude of effects interfering with bacterial viability (Nicolas, FEBS J, 276: 6483–6496, 2009; Padovan et al., Curr Protein Pept Sci, 11: 210–219, 2010). However, immunomodulatory, antitumor, and other effects have been added to the ever increasing list of AMP functions (Pushpanathan et al., Int J Pept, 2013: 675391, 2013). Several classes of AMPs have been distinguished based on structure, namely anti-parallel beta-sheet, alpha-helical, circular, as well as disulfide bridge connectivity (Bond and Khalid, Protein Pept Lett, 17: 1313–1327, 2010). Many of the AMPs undergo posttranslational modification including further proteolysis. Biochemical analysis at the protein level is of...
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