Prof. Yipeng Wang’s Team Publishes Research on Synergistic Effects of Antimicrobial Peptides and Non-direct Antimicrobial Cationic Peptides in Nature Communications

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) and non-direct antimicrobial cationic peptides (NDACPs) are essential components of the innate immune system across various animals. These peptides are secreted by hosts in response to invasive pathogens. While numerous NDACPs have been identified in different animals, their specific functions and the potential interactions with AMPs remain largely unexplored.

In recent years, Prof. Wang Yipeng's research group at Soochow University has observed the secretion of large amounts of AMPs and NDACPs in several animals during the infection process, including the Chinese alligator (Biochem. J. 2017), the Chinese soft-shelled turtle (Dev. Comp. Immunol. 2019), and various amphibians (PLoS One 2014; Zool. Res. 2019; Dev. Comp. Immunol. 2021). Building on these findings, in August 2024, Prof. Wang's team, in collaboration with Prof. Lianghui Gao's group at Beijing Normal University, published a study titled Synergistic Collaboration between AMPs and Non-direct Antimicrobial Cationic Peptides in Nature Communications.

This study reveals the synergistic bactericidal effects between the AMP (AW1) and NDACP (AW2) co-expressed in the frog Amolops wuyiensis. AW2 enhances AW1's antimicrobial activity both in vitro and in vivo while reducing bacterial resistance and biofilm formation. The research demonstrates that AW1 and AW2 work together to disrupt bacterial membranes, facilitate the uptake of AW2 by bacterial cells, and enable the interaction of AW2 with intracellular bacterial genomic DNA, thereby inhibiting DNA replication and protein synthesis. Moreover, the combined action of AW1 and AW2 triggers the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) within bacterial cells, leading to cell death when ROS levels reach a threshold. Additionally, this synergistic antimicrobial effect between AMPs and NDACPs was found to be common across different animal species. These discoveries uncover a strong, previously unknown correlation between AMPs and NDACPs as widespread immune defense molecules in animals.

Ph.D. student Zifan Ye (Soochow University) and Dr. Lei Fu (Beijing Normal University) are the first authors. Prof. Yipeng Wang and Prof. Lianghui Gao are the corresponding authors. This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32070439, 22373011), Jiangsu Province’s Key Research and Development Program for Social Development (BE2022723), and Suzhou Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation Project (SNG2022054).

Reference:

Ye Z^#, Fu L^#, Li S, Chen Z, Ouyang J, Shang X, Liu Y, Gao L^*, Wang Y^*. Synergistic collaboration between AMPs and non-direct antimicrobial cationic peptides. Nat Commun 15(1), 7319 (2024).

Full-text link: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-51730-x

Corresponding Author:

Yipeng Wang is a professor at the College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Soochow University. His research focuses on the discovery of natural medicinal peptides/proteins, the design and application of medicinal peptides/proteins, and the study of innate immunity. He has published over 70 peer-reviewed articles in high-impact journals, including Nat Commun (2024), Med Res Rev (2024, 2022), J Med Chem (2023, 2022, 2018a, 2018b), Small (2023), J Biol Chem (2015), and ACS Infect Dis (2020). Two of his papers are recognized as ESI Highly Cited Papers, and his work has garnered over 2,400 citations, with one paper cited more than 290 times (Google Scholar). He has an H-index of 28. Prof. Wang holds more than 60 granted national invention patents and has led over 10 projects, including three funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and several key initiatives under the Jiangsu Provincial Key Research and Development Program. He has been honored as a high-level talent in Fujian Province, an outstanding young faculty member in Jiangsu Province's Qinglan Project, a leading entrepreneurial talent in Xiamen’s Double Hundred Plan, and a high-demand expert in regions such as the Yellow River Delta and Suzhou.