Effect of Arenicins and Other β-Hairpin Antimicrobial Peptides on Pseudomonas Aeruginosa PAO1 Biofilms

Abstract

The spread of bacterial strains with multiple drug resistance to various classes of antibiotics is a key problem of modern medicine. The ability of bacteria to form biofilms is an important factor of their drug resistance. Therefore, new antimicrobial compounds that act efficaciously against pathogenic bacteria regardless of their metabolic activity, physiological properties, and localization must be discovered. Cationic antimicrobial peptides (AMP) are especially interesting among such compounds. The goal of the present work was to study the anti-biofilm activity of arenicin-1 and its therapeutically valuable analog V8R prepared previously by us as compared with several known β-hairpin AMP of animal origin. A number of β-hairpin AMP at micromolar concentrations suppressed completely not only planktonic growth but also biofilm formation by Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1 and also killed bacteria within the biofilms and caused their degradation.