Abstract
Malaria is a parasitic disease, caused by protozoa of the genus Plasmodium, and is transmitted to humans through the bites of infected Anopheles mosquitoes. More than 200 million cases of malaria are reported annually and about 400,000 deaths worldwide. Currently, the use of antimalarial drugs has been efficient in most cases, however, resistance to these drugs is increasing, making it necessary and essential to have a new range of possible drugs or medicines to combat this disease. Scorpion venom contains peptides whose functions are now intensively studied. Some of these peptides are known as Scorpine-like, which have anti-bacterial and antiplasmodial properties as they have been described to inhibit the development of parasites responsible for malaria. Scorpine-like peptides are composed of two structural domains: one α-helical N-terminal domain, and a C-terminal domain with the cysteine-stabilized α/β motif, which confers the peptide the function of blocking potassium channels and/or anti-bacteria activity. In this work, two C-terminal domains from Scorpine-like peptides were constructed and expressed in Escherichia coli, and their function was analyzed. We were able to demonstrate that the recombinant C-terminal domains rCterVm and rCterHg showed antiplasmodial activity producing 60% and 90% inhibition, respectively, of Plasmodium berghei development at 1 µM and 0.15 µM concentration, which makes these peptides promising candidates against Malaria.
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Acknowledgements
Leonel Vargas-Jaimes is a doctoral student from the Programa de Doctorado en Ciencias Biomédicas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) and received the fellowship 287191 from Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACyT). This work was partially supported by grant IN202619 from Dirección General de Personal Académico, UNAM of Dr. Lourival D. Possani. The authors acknowledge assistance of Dr. Fernando Zamudio for the determination of molecular mass by spectrometry, and amino acid sequence by Edman degradation.
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This work was partially supported by grant IN202619 from Dirección General de Personal Académico, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) of Dr. Lourival D. Possani. Leonel Vargas-Jaimes received the fellowship 287191 from Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACyT).
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Vargas-Jaimes, L., Rodriguez, M.C., Argotte-Ramos, R. et al. Recombinant C-Terminal Domains from Scorpine-like Peptides Inhibit the Plasmodium berghei Ookinete Development In Vitro. Int J Pept Res Ther 27, 817–829 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10989-020-10130-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10989-020-10130-7