Facial reconstruction

Search LJMU Research Online

Browse Repository | Browse E-Theses

Identification and characterisation of anti - Pseudomonas aeruginosa proteins in mucus of the brown garden snail, Cornu aspersum

Pitt, SJ, Hawthorne, JA, Garcia-Maya, M, Alexandrovich, A, Symonds, RC and Gunn, A (2019) Identification and characterisation of anti - Pseudomonas aeruginosa proteins in mucus of the brown garden snail, Cornu aspersum. British Journal of Biomedical Science, 76 (3). pp. 129-136. ISSN 0967-4845

[img]
Preview
Text
Identification and characterisation of anti - Pseudomonas aeruginosa proteins in mucus of the brown garden snail, Cornu aspersum.pdf - Accepted Version

Download (604kB) | Preview

Abstract

Background Novel antimicrobial treatments are urgently needed. Previous work has shown that the mucus of the brown garden snail (Cornu aspersum) has antimicrobial properties, in particular against type culture collection strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. We hypothesised that it would also be effective against clinical isolates of the bacterium and that investigation of fractions of the mucus would identify one or more proteins with anti-pseudomonal properties, which could be further characterised. Materials and methods: Mucus was extracted from snails collected from the wild. Antimicrobial activity against laboratory and clinical isolates of Ps. aeruginosa was determined in disc diffusion assays. Mucus was purified using size exclusion chromatography and fractions containing anti-pseudomonal activity identified. Mass spectroscopy and high performance liquid chromatography analysis of these fractions yielded partial peptide sequences. These were used to interrogate an RNA transcriptome generated from whole snails. Results: Mucus from C. aspersum inhibited growth of type collection strains and clinical isolates of Ps. aeruginosa. Four novel C. aspersum proteins were identified; at least three are likely to have antimicrobial properties. The most interesting is a 37.4 kDa protein whilst smaller proteins, one 17.5 kDa and one 18.6 kDa also appear to have activity against Ps. aeruginosa. Conclusions: The study has identified novel proteins with antimicrobial properties which could be used to develop treatments for use in human medicine. Key words: antimicrobial; transcriptome; lectin; mucus; Cornu aspersum, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, transcriptome

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in British Journal of Biomedical Science on 17/06/2019, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/09674845.2019.1603794
Uncontrolled Keywords: 11 Medical and Health Sciences
Subjects: R Medicine > RM Therapeutics. Pharmacology
Divisions: Natural Sciences & Psychology (closed 31 Aug 19)
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Date Deposited: 04 Apr 2019 09:45
Last Modified: 04 Sep 2021 09:32
DOI or ID number: 10.1080/09674845.2019.1603794
URI: https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/10491
View Item View Item