Scientific advances have not been enough to combat the growing resistance to antimicrobial medicines. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are effector molecules of the innate immune defense system in plants and could provide an important source of new antimicrobial drugs. The aim of this work was to extract, purify, characterize, and evaluate the antifungal activities present in fractions obtained from Capsicum annum fruits through reversed-phase chromatography. The fractions named F2 and F3 presented the highest inhibitory activity against Candida and Mycobacterium tuberculosis species. In addition, we identified two sequences of AMPs in the F2 and F3 fractions through mass spectrometry that showed similarity to an already well-characterized family of plant defensins. A plasma membrane permeabilization assay demonstrated that the peptides present in F2, F3, and F4 fractions induced changes in the membrane of some yeast strains, culminating in permeabilization. The production of reactive oxygen species was induced by the fractions in some yeast strains. Fractions F2, F3, and F4 also did not show toxicity in macrophage or monocyte cultures. In conclusion, the obtained data demonstrate that the AMPs, especially those present in the fractions F2 and F3, are promising antimicrobial agents that may be useful to enhance the development of new therapeutic agents for the treatment of diseases.

中文翻译：

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来自具有抗菌活性的辣椒果实的两种防御素的鉴定和表征。

科学进步还不足以对抗日益增长的抗微生物药物耐药性。抗菌肽 (AMP) 是植物先天免疫防御系统的效应分子，可以提供新的抗菌药物的重要来源。这项工作的目的是通过反相色谱提取、纯化、表征和评估从辣椒果实中提取的馏分中存在的抗真菌活性。F2 和 F3 级分对念珠菌和结核分枝杆菌的抑制活性最高物种。此外，我们通过质谱法鉴定了 F2 和 F3 级分中的两个 AMP 序列，这些序列与已经充分表征的植物防御素家族相似。质膜透化试验表明 F2、F3 和 F4 级分中存在的肽会诱导一些酵母菌株的膜发生变化，最终导致透化。一些酵母菌株中的组分诱导了活性氧的产生。级分 F2、F3 和 F4 在巨噬细胞或单核细胞培养物中也没有表现出毒性。总之，获得的数据表明，AMPs，尤其是存在于部分 F2 和 F3 中的那些，是有前途的抗微生物剂，可用于促进新的治疗药物的开发以治疗疾病。